A Grave Mistake

...or, The Plot Thickens

A few posts back, I spoke of finding what I thought might be the doll house grave Nancy had told me -- the grave of the Cantrell child who wandered off and froze to death up on Straddle Top Mountain.

Then I got an email from Phyllis who said: " My husband called Jeter Cantrell, and he said that he did have a little sister who wandered away from home at age three and froze to death. He thinks this would have been in 1925 or '26. And she is buried in Walnut.

However, he remembers there being a dollhouse and doll on the grave of a little McDevitt girl, who was buried "above the road on the bank." He thinks her name might have been Ruby, and that she had a twin sister named Reba. I'm not sure if he meant they both died young or not. He said their father's name was Regan."

Aha!

So I passed this on to Nancy, who said: "Oh, my goodness! I know Reba McDevitt (if it's the same one) - she married Fred Rector (my cousin) and I was friends with their daughter. . . . I can still see that little doll house sitting up there on the bank. I vaguely remember looking in the windows of it and seeing dolls - one sitting in a little chair.

I don't remember hearing the story of twins and neither do my sister or brother but that doesn't mean much. "

To straighten out this confusion, yesterday Nancy very kindly came out to Walnut to show me where she remembered the doll house being.

And she pointed out Straddle Top Mountain, where the little girl died -- not a great picture, what with all the power lines but that area from the peak on the right to the peak half-hidden behind the trees on the left is where Nancy's family would have seen the lanterns moving as searchers looked for the little girl.

Nancy and I wandered through the grave yard and she pointed out markers of family and other folks she had known. I was paying special attention to the little lambs, wondering if one of these might mark the Cantrell child

Of course, they all tell sad stories -- like this one: "Budded on earth to bloom in heaven."

But though we found a few Cantrells, I never found a stone that fit the time and the description of the child.

So we went across the road for Nancy to show me where the doll house grave had been. And there was Ruby McDevitt, who died at the age of seven.

Nancy said that someone used to put new dolls in the doll house now and then. So now, I'd like to know more about Ruby and the story behind the doll house.

And I still wonder if that little broken-off stone back up in the far corner to the left of Ruby's grave, still might be that of the Cantrell child.

Nancy wants to know too and she's on the case.