Why Didn't You Tell Me?

Many ages ago, when this planet was not quite so ancient.....

I believe I stole that line from the Rakin-Bass animated production of The Hobbit.

It is, perhaps, the perfect lead-in to this little cemetery. And I do mean little. Five marked graves and maybe one with two infants. Maybe.

YACBITW. Yet Another Cemetery Back In The Woods.

As we approached the cemetery location, things started getting familiar. Very, very familiar. Eerily familiar. 

Sone-of-a!!!! I've been here A LOT. This is next to the house of a long time friend (well, friend's parents to be precise). We played hours upon hours of D&D and other games here. And she was married in the front yard (where did the gazebo go?!). This was our gaming hangout for literally YEARS. Yet never once did she mention the graves virtually in the front yard!

I'm gonna have to have a lonnnnng talk with that girl.

Sadly, like so many other century plus old cemeteries in these areas, this one is in bad shape. Two once lovely markers have fallen (been pushed?) over.

For Obvious Reasons

 I often remark about unknown and unknowable stories evoked by visiting this cemetery or that. Usually these questions can never be answered. Those who could answer them did not record the stories nor pass them on. 

Secrets literally taken to the grave.

Then there are cases where the answers are not too difficult to discern. And are poignant. Oh, so poignant. This is one of those cases.

Alone in a wooded area bounded on one side by a field through which electric transmission lines run and on the other side by industrial buildings rest two graves. That of a young mother - some 27 years old - and her only child - a son - who died before reaching age 7. No family near by. Neither parents nor siblings. If there are any other graves nearby they are unmarked and invisible.

Being too lazy and forgetful to take my own photos I stole these from Find A Grave.

All her family rest in graveyards and cemeteries some miles away. Her husband appears to vanish from the record. He does not show in subsequent Censuses and no one has recorded a memorial for him. 

So we have an obvious answer to the question of how these graves came to be all but forgotten. There are no descendants to tend them. Indeed, there appear to be no relatives of any kind. She was an only child based on what can be found in the records today. So the nearest possible surviving relative would have to be a 1st cousin. Or someone as or more distant. And how many people tend the graves of distant cousins?

Any life that ends at a young age is sad enough. And any parent who outlives their child is even more tragic whatever age it may be. Indeed, even someone over 100 years old experiencing the death of their 80 something year old child remains tragic despite the child having lived a long life.

So Harriet losing her only son at age 6 had to be heartbreaking. At least it was a pain she did not have to long endure as she passed almost exactly two months after him. Doubtless, though, those two months must have felt to her as an eternity.

Which brings us back full circle to unanswerable questions. Did she die by accident? Illness? Or did she surrender to something that she could have otherwise survived because having lost Henry she also lost her will to live?

Grove? Yes. Pleasant? Welllllll........

 The Grove may have been pleasant once upon a time, many years ago. Today? Not so much. Between the electric sub-station on one side and the mound of illegally dumped mattresses on the other, and with the plethora of briars, brush, and ivy everywhere, pleasant is not really the term I would apply today. 

Mattresses? Yup. No less than a half dozen. Probably more. I did not make the effort to gather a complete count. With 126 listed memorials in Find A Grave just getting a solid audit completed will prove to be enough of a task. Enough that we could not complete it (this being the end of a day of stomping through several cemeteries across a wide area). There are several that we either missed, could not find, of the update did not succeed. 

That is not to say we did not make a valiant effort! Indeed, we found a couple of previously missed memorials (one being only a partial stone with hand lettering on it). One challenge was locating a child who passed just prior to her 3rd birthday. A note for little Ozella (now THERE is a name!) stated, "Back left corner of cemetery with headstone sunk into the earth hiding the death date." The problem being determining the cemetery orientation! What is the front and what is the back? 

The headstones are oriented in the traditional East-West line for Christian beliefs and access today is from the Southern facing side. But looking carefully there are the remains of what looks like a roadbed running SSE to NNW along the Western facing side. I take that to be the original access thus making the West face the 'front' and slink off into the brush into the NE corner of the area. That is where I find the partial marker and pause to log it before resuming the search for Ozella's stone. I finally find it far removed from all the others. It is almost as though she was buried *outside* the cemetery. There certainly are not any obvious graves next to her. Even the partial stone I found is several feet removed from her grave. The area is far too overgrown to make a real assessment. Nor does there appear to be any records of the cemetery readily available. I suppose one could check property records and funeral home records to glean ideas about it. But as the meme today goes, "Ain't nobody got time for that!" Especially when there is no relationship to anyone in the cemetery.

Careful review shows one individual with two memorials! Yup. Submitted to be merged.

Further review raises two questionable memorials for deaths decades after the last clear burial in the cemetery. One in 1999 and one in 2000. A check reveals that these are actually in Pleasant Grove Baptist Church elsewhere in the county. Yes, those are duplicated there and yes, merges have been submitted.

These still leave nagging questions. The last actual burials too place in the later half of 1979. The last prior to those were single burials in 1967 then 1965. It is only when we go back to the 1950s that we see any kind of regular activity in the cemetery. What condition was the cemetery in in the 1970s? Was there any question about burying anyone in it?

I can understand why these last two people would desire to be interred here. One is with his wife and daughter, both of whom he lost in the 1930s. He rejoined them after 45 years. 

The other has parents and siblings here. I cannot determine if he ever married and had children. 

I wonder if anyone knows when a burial is the last that will ever take place in a cemetery. When this last burial for John Clayborn Snead (interestingly his draft card give his name as John Clayton Snead) was last to rest in October of 1979 was it clear that he would likely be the last burial here? What did the cemetery look like? 

I know from personal recollection that the area has changed dramatically since then. Both the blessing and curse of being an old fart.

I Have Been Misinformed

 Misinformed, hell! I done been lied to!

Picking cemeteries to audit is basically an exercise in triage. Locating them is only one part. Looking at location, access, and number of memorials all must be factored in. For example: There are two cemeteries within walking distance from Br'er's warren. However! One of them is a large, modern, commercial cemetery with thousands of graves. The other is relatively smaller with a few hundred graves. Neither is one that could be audited in a short period. But the latter could be done over the course of a long day or two. The former would take several weeks to audit. So if picking one or the other for an afternoon excursion, obviously the latter would win out.

Picking places for area audits generally means restricting the candidates to those with fewer than about 150 memorials. Usually the focus is on those the handfuls instead. And among those there are many that simply cannot be accessed. At least not without permission of property owners. Fenced yards and close quarters houses make access nigh on impossible.

Recently we set out to audit a cemetery with 4 memorials (only 1 of which had a grave photo in Find A Grave). Expectation was to find one or two markers in a small spot behind a church. 

That wasn't the reality.

Small cemetery? Yes. Four graves? Oh, hell no! There are closer to three score graves here! As the Marine nephew might put it, "Adjust fire!" Not doing a full audit here today. We have too many other places lined up to visit this day so a full audit will have to wait for another day.

I did update Find A Grave with a few memorials. Namely all the military markers, one of which appears to be a cenotaph for a WW I serviceman. I say appears. More research would be needed to confirm.

While all the memorials are not logged into Find A Grave, I did more than double the number in the system so honor has been satisfied.

"That's a Negative, Ghost Rider"

There are times when discretion is truly the order of the day. And today was that day!

Another day dodging rain and auditing small cemeteries in the counties surrounding Br'er's home warren. One of the planned visits was to what is labeled in Find A Grave as McAfee Road Cemetery located on, shockingly, McAfee Road! With a scant 5 listed memorials an audit should take mere minutes.

The operative word there being 'should'. 

A truism taught to all military leaders is put simply; No plan survives contact with the enemy. Boy-o does it apply to these graveyard excursions! And how!

These graves are located in a residential area. The only parking is on the street (unless one is willing to risk using some stranger's driveway). McAfee Road is a main thoroughfare for the area so parking on the curb there is absolutely out of the question. There are side streets before and after the cemetery location, but these are, how shall I put it, not somewhere I would choose to leave a vehicle unattended. So the plan morphs into Mrs. Br'er staying with the car and circling the block while Old Br'er himself dashes over to execute the quick audit. 

That *was* the plan. What I found changed all that. Hell, it resulted in aborting the mission!

Unless I was willing to spend an hour or five clearing ivy no audit was happening. The entire area had been completely covered with a thick layer of English Ivy since someone had last updated Find A Grave with photos of the graves. Just for reference, these are those pictures stolen taken borrowed from Find A Grave.

Even in these one can see the ivy creeping in to take over.

It is worth sharing, too, what I encountered when I reached the site. This is the view from the sidewalk looking in at the area the graves are.

What especially saddens me is that I believe there are a couple of unrecorded graves here. If you enlarge this photo and look just to the right of base of the ivy covered tree, you will spot some telltale grey. This looked at the moment like a couple of  False Tomb graves. None of the listed memorials in Find A Grave show a False Tomb marker. So if that is what these are then there are unlisted graves on the site.

I hate that it was simply too unsafe to spend any time here. Perhaps one day if I can recruit a few folks to join in (there being safety in numbers) we can revisit, execute the audit, and determine for certain if these are graves or not.

All But Forgotten

 I have often commented on how the graves of children - and especially infants - are arguably the saddest to encounter. A life cut so short and the grief of new or nearly parents is tragic.

But I think I need to amend that sentiment.

As tragic as the death of any child is, finding a child's grave that has clearly been lost, overlooked, and neglected, and which you cannot even link to a family, is more tragic still. I encountered just this case recently.

We had set out to visit some nearby family cemeteries (no relations - just an excuse to tramp about in a cemetery). These were pretty much in residential areas and each had only a handful of memorials in it.

Whaley Cemetery turned out to be in a small neighborhood, sitting in a small plot adjacent to a home, and on the 'corner' of a cul-de-sac entry. With three recorded memorials, taking a couple of minutes to GPS tag each was a moral imperative. 

But there were more than three graves. Several are totally unmarked save perhaps a field stone. But two were not. One was only a footstone with initials which I logged anyway. 

Then there was Lora's small headstone. 13 months 2 weeks old. Tragic. But even more touching is that there is no obvious connection between Joel Whaley (the progenitor in this cemetery) and a Wood family. Who were this child's parents? How did she come to be here? And more maddening, why was her grave overlooked or ignored when this cemetery was created in Find A Grave? The entire cemetery isn't much larger than a two car garage. And her headstone is mere feet from the large Whaley stone. How and why was she ignored?

Addendum: I spent some time trying to suss out who this child's parents might be based on Census records. Sadly I cannot place a Wood family anywhere near the Whaley family in either the 1870 or the 1880 Census. And there is nothing about little Lora in any on-line reference.

Pounds Cemetery

 Where is the most obvious place to find a family cemetery? Why in an industrial park, naturally. In this case Old Br'er himself actually earned his carrots working in one of the nearby buildings. Yet he never so much as heard about this place in all those years.

One look and you would naturally know this leads to an old cemetery. Duh!

One of those little details that haunt me. Note the furthest "table" grave cover. It does not actually have the slab visible, only the 'legs'. Were you standing there and looking down you would see a slab at the base, flat on the ground. None of the other versions have a slab at ground level, only atop the legs. Now look closer. All the legs for all the memorials tape up from the ground. Rather like obelisks with the tops cut off. 

Now. Either that last grave is missing the top (by design or destruction) OR it is upside down (which would have taken more than a little effort!). If the former, why did it get two slabs and the others only one? If the latter, why are the legs reversed?

The stone walls are for False Tombs. On the left is a probable single grave, though it is large enough to perhaps be two. On the right is an obvious triple grave, and possibly a quadruple. Alas, none of these have anything indicating a name. One could speculate on who is where based on identified graves adjoining them and the dates for persons recorded as being buried in the cemetery. These False Tombs - especially this style - is rather common in the Southern US for periods in the 19th Century. But it would remain only speculation.

What was particularly unusual about this cemetery is that there is a recent interment. A mere five years ago. Prior to that the last recorded burial was in 1905! 105 years 9 months later to be precise! A little digging shows this last burial to be the 3rd Great-grandson of the patriarch of this family. His 2nd GGF is buried here as well. 

It is worth noting that this 2015 date is most probably for cremains. There is no indication of an actual grave being dug, and there is a stone border in place that is fare too small to be a full grave. This would also make sense as getting equipment in to excavate a grave would be nigh on impossible for the site. 

And I don't think anyone would be carrying a casket and vault in by hand, either! Just getting the headstone in place had to be a serious effort.

I've heard of "pouring one out" for a fallen comrade. But I can't recall finding entire beers being left before. I would have thought James warranted better than Miller, though.

Rowden Family Cemetery

Blink and you miss it! Another 'postage stamp' cemetery.

 

That white spot at the base of the trees to the left of the utility pole is a headstone!

Try as I might I cannot find anything telling the story. And I really want to hear the story!

"Covered Wagon Girl"? That is the only name that survived to be recorded on a marker? Was she mute and illiterate so could not give her name? Was she mentally incapable of knowing her name? Was she a child? Was she found dead in a covered wagon? Not knowing is maddening!

Granted, this stone was obviously placed a century or so later, so it may be based more on lore and less on fact. That the stone is newer is clear not only based on the marker itself, but also by the VA marker for Hubbard Rowden.

That is NOT an older marker! Worth noting that he is cited as serving in the War of 1812. Well, yes and no. Something many folks do not know is that anyone serving in the period of the War of 1812 is considered a veteran OF the War of 1812. In Hubbard's case he was in the Georgia Militia at the time. That qualified him to have it listed on his VA headstone. 

Something else many people do not know is that anyone who served honorably in the military - including militia and Confederacy - may receive a US Government issued headstone (or brass marker) from the Veterans Administration at no charge. The amount of time elapsed since the person's death and the marker request is not a factor providing that there is proof of burial location AND there has not been a previous marker issued - one to a customer. You may have to prove relationship to the veteran. For example, Sons of the American Revolution can no longer request a marker for a American Revolution Patriot (they could decades ago). The request has to come from a descendant of the veteran. 

The condition of the Hubbard's headstone clearly indicates that it is either a recent placement OR someone has done a stellar job of cleaning it recently. I am betting on the former.

Huff Cemetery

I will refrain from the obvious 'went off in a Huff' references.

It is astounding the number of families that distant kin married into. Though considering the number of generations involved it really should not be.

Today's journey took us to a rather interesting family cemetery. So often these places are abandoned and overgrown. Not so this Huff Cemetery! In fact, there was even a notice posted:

Now I can understand the 'We are full' sentiment. But is people just digging graves really a problem in this day and time? 

All I can imagine is the independent Hit Man needing someone to dispose of his latest contract.

There are a number of large Oak trees keeping the area in almost total shade. This means little vegetation. Initially the impression I get is more of a location nearer to the Colonial Coast. If there were Spanish Moss in the trees this could easily be Savannah and environs. After a few minutes I realize that what I am remembering is not the coast, but Grandma Rabbit's place. She took great pride in her little yard - also shaded by a couple of large trees - not having a single blade of grass nor anything green or growing other than the trees. And she kept a Brush Broom (A broom made of tiny branches instead of straw like a house broom. Picture something closer to a stereotypical Witch's Broom) at the ready. That yard was swept daily. Any leaves, sticks, acorns, or anything else that despoiled her yard was quickly swept away. The dirt was carefully and diligently swept and brushed into either a pleasant pattern or utter nothing according to her whims of the day. A Buddist Monk would be as proud to have such results in the temple Zen Garden.

Obviously folks here had the desire and means to commemorate their ancestors. There were at least two large stones erected to record them.

Oy! Walking here from Atlanta today would take several days. Google maps gives the time needed as 21.5 hours. That is just non-stop walking time. Factor in any breaks for food, biology, rest, and sleep and the time only increases. And that is for healthy people on modern roads. At the time the roads would have been little more than dirt or mud. It had to take the better part of a week back then.

As we arrived here later in the day, plumb tuckered from a day in the summer sun and heat, and considering there are almost 300 listed graves in the cemetery, a full audit is not in the cards. We have to content ourselves in finding the kinfolk and GPS tagging them.  

One is the loneliest number

 Ever pass a small cemetery many times and each time say to yourself, "I have to remember to check that place out." only to forget to do it? I have. More times than I can recall. So when I passed this little fenced cemetery for about the 100th time I simply stopped right then and there.

Fewer than 11 listed graves, but not all photographed. After I had audited all the markers and had two remaining I was about to write them off as having no markers when my activities attracted the attention of the older lady who lived next to the site. Naturally she had to come and insure I was not up to anything nefarious.

I explained myself to her satisfaction and mentioned the two unmarked graves. She perked up and told me one of them is not actually in the cemetery. It is several yards away in the wooded area adjacent to the cemetery. 

And so the hunt was on!

It took only a couple of minutes, with her help, to locate the marker. 

She shared with me that the area had not always been as overgrown. That she had placed the bunny figurine with it.

This child's grave is another in the long line of stories that are lost to the mists of time. 

1867 was just after "The Recent Unpleasantness". Reconstruction was underway and the South was broken. Few people had excess money. Hell, few had money at all! This is a very high quality headstone in terms of both materials and workmanship. It had to be expensive at the time. Something few could afford. Yet here it is.

And why here? Alone? Granted the next burial was not for another 20 years or so. Still, why were the other burials not here with her instead of removed as they are.

Questions like this bore into my mind. I can write so many stories to explain them. Alas, we will never know the truth behind them.

Moving Cemeteries

 All cemeteries are, to one degree or another, a moving experience. But this one takes that into a whole new direction.

While searching for a Great-Aunt's grave I happened upon what at first glance looked like a family plot in the rear of the cemetery. It was surrounded by a well maintained hedge with one opening to allow access. In that access point stands a marker that is clearly not a grave marker.

This bears investigation!

I have encountered relocated graves before. And I have heard about relocated cemeteries, but never encountered one. A little investigate reveals that the original cemetery site is now submerged. It is under the surface of a reservoir constructed to manage the county water supply. Fortunately for the relatives (of which old Br'er is not one) all 47 graves were moved here. Into a cemetery within a cemetery.

That's a new one on me, too.

Robison Cemetery

 I have come to loathe Goldenrod. Walking through this place (once I found it) was like walking through one of the Southeastern Asia festivals where participants pelt each other with powdered colored chalk. Except in this case it was all yellow. It was almost as though someone deliberately planted the stuff so as to cover every square inch of the cemetery. Every step, every movement, disturbed at least 3 stalks of the damned stuff releasing literal clouds of vivid yellow pollen.

I haven't sneezed so much in my life. Trying to read headstones was an exercise in frustration due to the constant flow of tears. Between sweating in the summer heat coupled with the copious tears and nasal ... discharges ... I was truly concerned about dehydrating! 

But with fewer than three dozen graves completing the audit was not a problem. Well, aside from the wheezing and sneezing it was not a problem. 

Finding it, however, was the challenge. Not that it was hidden or far off the road or anything like that. No, in this case it was because the Find A Grave coordinates were off my about a hundred or so yards. And the road signs had different names in places than what shows on on-line maps. Basically I was being sent to the wrong place using incorrect street names. Fortunately I was able to spot a clue that put me on track.

A clue. Yeah. How about a street sign reading "Robison Cemetery Rd"? Given that I was searching for Robison Cemetery it was a safe bet that the cemetery should be on or near it somewhere. And considering that the road is only some 75 yards long I could be pretty sure that I was close to my destination. Problem was that the directions in hand had me looking in the opposite direction for about 10 minutes. It was only when I was about to give up and move on to another destination that I saw the sign. 

Just Damn.

And yes, that name is Robison. Not Robinson. I can't recall finding that name before. 

Infant graves are always sad, but seeing one like this is all the more poignant. 

The tree stump and dead or dying bird were popular icons in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. But I have only seen one or two where the bird's wing is extended like this.

Georgia has an abundance of granite. But this type with the variegated color strata are infuriating. Even when there is no dirt, lichen, moss, or such material on the surface it remains infuriatingly difficult to read. I keep finding markers like it all over the area.

The Good and the Ugly, and the Not Too Bad

The Good

 Another day locating graves of distant kin took me, again, to a family cemetery I never heard about before. Turns out that Br'er has a veritable bunny-load of family cemeteries dating from the earliest days of the area. Most of the counties down in these parts were created in the early 1800s and Br'er's ancestors were among the first to jump into the area. And they bred like, well, rabbits. As a result they started various and sundry family cemeteries as they spread out.

The initial goal was to find a cousin, the granddaughter of one of Br'er's 5th Great-Grandfathers. The description mentioned that it was about 100 yards back off the road. Great. Cow Pasture, here I come!

I was pleasantly surprised to find a VERY well maintained little site, fenced off from the surrounding cattle. Most of the time I have to fight weeds, briers, brambles, and other such growth to reach the graves. Not so this time. Drive right up to an actual gate and walk in. It looks like a professionally maintained commercial cemetery! Mowed grass, open space, gorgeous place!

As there were only about 120 graves recorded, auditing the entire place only took an hour or two to complete. And there were some 8 or 9 memorials that were not in Find A Grave yet. When I was done, everyone was identified and GPS tagged.

There was even one marker with a symbol that we have never seen before:

We have seen various examples of the Pointing Hand before but never one holding a Cross. And if you are curious, yes, this person passed away at age 25. Sad, but never as sad as the numerous graves of infants and children that are inevitable in these cemeteries.

Good deed for the day done, several hours of daylight remaining, and better weather than I deserve, I decided to see if there were any additional cemeteries close by. Especially any with open photo requests. There are two within about half a mile, both with requests. Excellent! And they appear to be from the same core family. Plus, they appear to be related to at least one person who married one of my distant cousins.

Being a bass-ackwards type person I naturally head for the second cemetery first. Not only is it closer but it only has 8 listed graves so it should take mere minutes to investigate and audit. I always prefer to complete and audit once I start it. Especially in these remote locations that take an hour or so to reach.

The Ugly

I knew I should have brought a sharp machete.

Ok, it wasn't that bad. But there is enough growth that a machete would have been useful. And true to the description, it was off the road and in the brush. At least a couple of markers are visible from the road.

Note the large headstone just left of center in the last photo. I was standing on the other side of it at one point updating some information on my smartphone. I was close enough to it that I could easily rest a drink on top of it without moving. As I stood there I heard a rumbling kind of noise. As I had not had anything to eat that day (don't ask!) I merely attributed the sounds to my stomach making its emptiness known to all.

I then moved several steps away from it and heard the sounds again. But this time they were further away from me and seemed to be emanating from the headstone instead of me.

To steal a line from Richard Pryor's character, Mudbone, "That's when I put my hand on my gun, your honor." (Yes. When I am in these remote location I carry a firearm. Especially when I am in these remote wooded locations.) Hearing scratching from graves is somewhat unnerving. I am only glad this was full daylight and not after sunset! Casting my eyes about I spotted a rodent burrow. Ah-ha! There is the fecking culprit. Had that little bastard poked his head out I would have shot him for scaring the hell out of me!

The unwritten stories from these places always fascinate me. This place had several. Right up front is how one man came to have more than one marker. The first was clearly his original headstone placed there contemporaneous to his burial. The second was his VA issued later for his service as a Confederate Soldier. 

Yes, the US Government issued (and still does under the proper conditions) grave markers for Confederate Veterans. Most people are not aware that a law was passed making Confederate Vets US Veterans for these and other purposes.

Another question was what was the cemetery like when the last burial took place in 1931.

I note that some one has placed an infant listed as buried here based on the headstone in another cemetery entirely. Things like this I note to follow-up on to get corrected in Find A Grave when I am back home and in front of a real computer. There are also about 5 obvious unmarked graves as indicated by depressions in the ground with accompanying field stone markers. I add these to Find A Grave almost doubling the number of graves in the cemetery.

The Not Too Bad

From there it is off to the other cemetery from the same family. It is considerably larger with greater than 200 listed graves. 

Now a bit of experience in the fine art of Cemetery Cavorting has taught me to took at all the data before I move to a location. Especially when the on-line map show me that I have to traipse across a pasture to get to the location. In those moments I make certain to look at the wider map and satellite view of the area. Sure enough there appears to be a drive way accessing the site and it should be about 100 yards BEFORE the routing software tells me to go.

Yup. Driveway. Feck. There is some seriously high grass between the wheel ruts. Note to self: Go slow and take extra care. If this is not the right place then I could be force to back out - there may not be space to turn the car around.

Sure enough, some 200+ yards off the road is the cemetery. And it is the second largest family cemetery I have ever seen! I just hope I can complete auditing it before I have to leave. Fortunately for me there is ample open space to park and turn the car around for my departure.

This is no normal family cemetery! And it is active! I find one grave dating from Aug 2019. There is plenty of open spaces for additional graves and there are pipes driven into the ground in a pretty obvious effort to mark off individual plots of multiple graves. 

I was not able, alas, to fulfill the photo requests. Those are for graves dating back to the early and mid 1800s, While there are several graves marked and unmarked that could date from that era, there are unfortunately none with surviving markings that I can attribute to any of the requests.

It is obvious where there would have been something originally set into the markers listing the deceased's Name, and Birth and Death Dates. Sadly, all that information is long lost.

Equally sad at the children's markers that not only cannot be read in their present state, are literally 'decomposing'. I tried to move one in order to attempt to read it only to have the stone literally crumble in my fingertips.  It was like trying to pick up a dried sand castle. Any coherence it once had does not survive touch.

I could make a stab at identifying them as a group based on where they were in relation to other nearby markers, and by whose graves I did not positively locate. But that would be all. There was no way to positively deduce which grave was whose at this point. 

I was able to complete the audit with plenty of light left. But it took a lot out of me to do so.

One thing kept gnawing at my thoughts the whole time. It was only when I was getting ready to leave that what had been teasing my brain the whole time was a large, old oak tree one the edge of the space. I finally realized that it reminded me of the Whomping Willow from Harry Potter!

At least it was not taunting me with the sounds of burrowing rodents!