Showing posts with label graveyards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label graveyards. Show all posts

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Flu Shots and Graveyards

So, that was my day, how was  yours?

Mother, Daughter and I went together to get our flu shots.

Mother got a super duper honkin' special flu shot because of her age (over sixty-five). Her frail little nothing arms show nary a scratch from the injection.

Daughter got a regular flu shot in her skinny, iddy biddy arms. Nary a scratch on her, either.

I got a regular flu shot in my big old ham hocker arm and I have a bloody, bruised spot with a large pump knot under the skin.

Go figure.

After that, we visited Mount Vernon Church's cemetery.

What a fun day!

No, really.

We were looking for any grave with the name Sawyer attached to it, and by golly we found two. Mother knew they would be buried among the Shepard's, because her granddaddy's sister had married a Shepard.

The two we found, as best Mother could figure, were her great-grandparents.

She really enjoyed walking around looking at different tombstones, reminiscing about people she knew.

It was a pretty brisk day, but other than that, the ground was flat and the trip pleasant.

Made us hungry.

Graveyards will do that to you, I supposed. I guess that's why everybody gets fed so much after a funeral.

We all ate together, which was fun. We are going out together less and less, because Mother doesn't feel like going out.

So today was a red letter day.

Flu shots, graveyards and all.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Graveyard Shift

I spent the better part of Saturday morning and early afternoon at a graveyard.

What fun! You exclaim.

Why didn't you invite me? You pout.

Party on! You exclaim.

You people need to get a life.

As do I.

See, I had discovered this tombstone when I was at the graveyard the other day with my mother. (No, I wasn't trying to talk her into anything)

There is an old tombstone that is so pitted and blackened it is almost impossible to see not only what, but if something was engraved on it.

I got very close to it and could make out some letters, and was convinced it was an older tombstone of my great-grandmother's. My father, my mother's parents, her father's parents and my grandfather's mother's parents, as well as all his siblings (but one) are buried there. My grandfather's parents, as well as two of his siblings have newer tombstones, replaced by a relative many years ago.

It stood to reason that perhaps the older one of my great-grandmother's had remained standing too.

So Husband went with me Saturday with equipment in hand to rub the tombstone and find out exactly what it said.

It's a really super neato thing to watch as letters appear on paper as he used a dark charcoal pencil to rub across the white paper.  I remember doing the same thing as a kid to coins. Sorta like magic, you know?

A disappointment that it wasn't my great-grandmother's, but then an interesting find. She was born in 1838 and died in 1907. She was a gentleman's 'consort'. 

I looked up the word, and it can mean marriage, or an 'intimate relationship', a partnership or even harmony among musical instruments.

I was told later than on very old tombstones, such as this one, they often said they were a consort, and it does mean they were married to one another.

Learn something new every day.

Then, across the way in the church yard underneath a big old tree, two damsels were in distress and Husband and I went over to help. I stood there, helpfully. He, being THE MAN, was able to get the three lug nuts off the flat tire they had been unable to loosen.

Finally, able to journey back to town, I thought we deserved a reward and purchased ourselves egg biscuits before going on home.

Graveyards, tombstone rubbing, consorts, damsels, biscuits.

Just another day in the South.

Ya'll come see us.

We'll larn ye thangs.