Friday, July 27, 2012

My Summer Vacation-Going To the Cemetery II

 Finally Made the Trip

Finally made it to the cemetery! We packed an ice chest full of water, thankfully! It was HOT! Thursday morning we got up and my husband says to me, "So, what are your plans for the day?" I said, "Are you kidding me?" He was lucky that the answer was yes, he was! I decided to narrow it down to two cemeteries that were quite near each other. One was the Standard Sandhill Cemetery where my husband's great grandmother was buried and the other was the Necaise Crossing Cemetery where his great grandfather and great great grandparents are buried as well as many aunts, uncles, and cousins.

We made a quick stop by the Dollar General store, to pick up some flowers. Yes, we now have a Dollar General deep in the heart of the country! We may not have much else other than a Feed Store, fields, horses and cows, but by golly we have our very own Dollar General Store!

First stop Standard Sand Hill Cemetery. My husband parked under an oak tree next to a grave site that had a bench in the shade along with a hanging wind chime. It was a very serene spot. I quickly got to work going row by row taking photos. It was quite hot out, but thankfully it was over cast and it did not feel quite so bad. This cemetery is full of sand, which I would guess is where it gets the name Sandhill. It also was the home to these rather freakishly fast lizards that zipped in and out of the graves as I was walking around giving me a fright each time. When I got to the third row, I worried a bit about having enough memory on my camera and decided to make a mental note of where I stopped to come back again another day to finish since it was a rather large cemetery, and the next one was much smaller. We put the flowers on Mama Vickie's grave, and left to go to the next one.

Necaise Crossing Cemetery was dedicated in 1882. The land was donated by John Hebrew Necaise and his wife Angeline Ladner. Nearly all those buried in this cemetery are related in some way or lived close by. Once again we were able to park underneath an old oak tree. A farmer was rolling hay in the field adjacent to the cemetery, and several young boys were riding horses down the road. I set off  and immediately saw names very familiar to me since I have added the majority of them to FAG and they are all in my family tree. My intention is to catalog this entire cemetery, and take photos of each grave.

This cemetery had not been cut in ages. As most of our family cemeteries are out here in the country, they are not maintained by the county. It is up to each family member to clean and cut their families plot. So, after much bending down and pulling weeds to be able to get a clear picture of the headstones. I was completely worn out. Not to mention my cloud cover had dissipated, and I could feel my lips sunburning in the heat. The water in my bottle was soon so hot I could not stand to drink it. Instead of lizards, this time I had crickets. Each and every headstone had a family of crickets living among them. In fact several of my photos show them just sitting there on the headstones. I took to calling it the Cricket Cemetery.

I can not believe I did not think to bring an extra memory stick, or my laptop with me. I could have dumped the photos I had already taken if I had. So, I am out of memory and I am only half done. Great! This means I will have to come back another day. Which my beloved spouse has agreed to. It seems that when I pointed out his great great grandfather born in 1856, it made him more eager to know who the others were. He was very intrigued at seeing and learning about each of the persons buried there. I could see a pride in him and he genuinely wants to complete the cemetery as much as I.




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