I've borrowed a fiaker from Merisi's Vienna to take us over to Molly Weston's MERITORIOUS MYSTERIES for the last stop on the blog tour.
But perhaps the elegant conveyance below would be more suitable. I'm talking about graveyards and giving an excerpt from the new book -- an excerpt set in a graveyard. And it is the last stop, after all...and your last chance to leave a comment and be entered in a drawing for a copy of the new book.
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.
I returned to the Walnut cemetery yesterday, having been told by Nancy where to look for the Cantrell child's grave.
If I understood her correctly, it should be in this section, far at the back.
I didn't find any stones that said 'Cantrell,' but this little marker -- which may have been broken off -- with its uneven chiseled cross seems to be a likely candidate.
There's a field stone at the foot of the grave -- about three feet lie between the two markers. Just right for a small child.
To the right of this grave is another, somewhat longer --maybe five feet. It's marked with two rocks -- no carving.
There was no sign at all of a playhouse -- no rotting boards or anything at all. This may or may not be the Cantrell child's resting place.
But whoever it was, I wish I'd thought to bring a flower.
Last Friday seemed like a good day to explore a graveyard. My brother was visiting from Alabama and I enlisted him to go with me to look for the Cantrell child's grave.
But first, some back story . . .
I posted a picture of the Walnut church cemetery a few weeks back and Nancy Meadows, the friend who so kindly shared her aunts' diaries with me, wrote to say that she remembered a playhouse with dolls in it built atop one of the graves in that cemetery.
Well, of course I wanted to know more and soon Nancy replied that it was the grave of a little girl -- a Cantrell.
Nancy said, "The family lived over on Straddle Top Mountain and there were a number of children (I believe that Jeter Cantrell is the last surviving child but could be wrong). The parents left the children alone to go to the store and the girl (who was 3-4 years old at the time) got out of the house and walked off with one of the family dogs. She was found frozen to death in the woods with the dog still beside her. My brother said that Daddy told him you could see the lanterns of people looking for her on Straddle Top Mountain. "
What a heart-breaking story!
Nancy is making inquiries to find out more. The play house is gone but I was hoping to find the grave so my brother and I wandered about, looking for Cantrells.
Some of the markers were illegible and some graves were marked only by rocks.
At least one gravestone was broken . . .
We never did find the Cantrell child's grave -- and I thought of those lanterns flickering on the slopes of Straddle Top Mountain as the searchers criss-crossed the dark slopes, calling the lost child's name.
And I thought of the sorrow that must have come with the morning light.
Oh, the stories that fall into my lap! Just like all the wonderful stuff about Inez and Odessa that Nancy Meadows shared with me, now I'm getting to know someone even closer to home -- Benjamin Franklin Freeman.
Ben Freeman with his daughter and grandchildren
Terry Roberts, the great-great grandson of Benjamin Franklin Freeman, sent me these old pictures, along with the bare details of Freeman's life.
Terry wrote:
". . . Benjamin Franklin Freeman (1834-1907), who is buried in the Freeman Cemetery (or sometimes called the "Gid Payne" Cemetery) up on the right just at the head of Anderson Branch. He is my great-great grandfather, and in so many ways is the most ambiguous character in the long drama of the family.
My guess is you've taken a walk or two through that cemetery (sign on the gate reads "KEEP CLOSED OR: CATTLE WILL DESTROY YOUR GRAVES").
Just to give you a tease, he fought in both armies during the civil war. He and his brother killed a member of the confederate home guard (who has stolen the family horse) after the war. He "studied medicine" under a doctor in Mars Hill and "wrote prescriptions" through much of his later life. He tried to kill his wife's lover round about 1870, but since he only had his pocket knife, he managed just to "cut him."
And this is just the beginning. And he was (or is; Faulkner says there is no "was") your neighbor on Anderson Branch. "
In a later email, Terry said:
"My understanding from the Freemans is that they lived (when they lived together) just up at the head of Anderson Branch. And when they separated, he loaded up a sled (pulled by oxen of course) and "moved to the other side of the mountain," where he built the cabin you see in first picture I sent you.
That first picture (with the cabin) is dated ~1880. Kneeling in front of him is his daughter Margaret Graham, holding two of her children: Millard and Flora. Standing beside him is his granddaughter, Belva Anderson, who later married Julius Roberts (and who is my grandmother).
The dog is unidentified..."
An old photo of Freeman and his estranged wife, Harriet, from late in their lives, when most of their personal war was over.... ca 1900-1905. I asked for more about Harriet,(how could I not?) and Terry responded: "Apparently they were both hot-tempered, passionate, "robust" people, and if anything, she was meaner than he. When they sued each other for divorce, he had thrown her out of the house and the children stayed with him for several years (fairly young children, girls as well as boys) until she tried to get them back as part of a divorce settlement.
It apparently started with the war and the fact that he left her to join the union army. Then after he returned, he went to jail at one point for making liquor. She may or may not have had a lover at any of these junctures while he was gone. He caught her by virtue of the fact that she gave him a venereal disease.
It's a perfectly sordid story in many ways, and yet when you read the long, rambling stories he told the federal pension agents, you can't help but like him. And apparently the children and grandchildren all sided with him (which should tell us something about her...). He was a bit of a con man, story teller, whiskey maker, sometime farmer who practiced a sort of rustic medicine (two people have told me he "wrote prescriptions": what does that mean?). And his children loved him even though he apparently was involved in killing one man and tried to kill another....
I'm still trying to piece together the story--slowly working through a time line. As a child, I was told she refused to live with him after the war. But the more I learn, the more complex it becomes....
And oh yes, he wrote a beautiful hand, and she could not sign her name: put an "X" to mark her depositions.
And like I say: all in your backyard . . ."
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In my backyard, indeed! The Gid Payne cemetery borders our farm. Those are our bad cows the sign warns against. And Benjamin was the grandfather of Clifford, from whom we bought our farm. I had to pay a visit to this neighbor so I went up the road . . .
Up on the little hogback ridge, I looked for Ben amongst all his many descendants.
