Visiting our Past

This monument stands just a few feet from the gates for this cemetery. It’s part of my maternal family’s genealogical lineage. We have a number of ancestors buried here, but many more are scattered in various other small cemeteries all over the Appalachian Mountains. It’s an almost impossible task to find everyone’s burial site because many cemeteries are not maintained and there are no records to indicate who is buried where.

Time and the elements take their toll on cemeteries, whether they are maintained by dedicated volunteers, paid staff, or as we found at one totally abandoned cemetery located on a hill behind a Methodist Church, left to just disappear back into the earth. This particular cemetery was completely overgrown with vegetation, to the point where very little sunlight broke through the crowns of the trees. Left without anyone to care for them, these monuments to those lived before crumble and disintegrate. We found it difficult to photograph many of the headstones, for lack of light and/or because the ground had caused the headstones to sink into the ground at odd angles. We were careful where we stepped — there didn’t seem to be any rhyme nor reason in the layout of the burying grounds, and we knew there HAD to be some snakes, spiders or Poison Oak/Ivy running about somewhere. Some of the earliest monuments were mere parts of a granite post, without any writing. We had hoped to find our great-grandparents graves, but no such luck. I did acquire a nice case of Poison Oak/Ivy on my face, neck, arms and torso. A not-so-fond remembrance of my visit to Virginia.

I was not alone in my search for family there at the Swindall Cemetery — I’m there in the picture, bent over, trying to capture the name on the headstone while other family members walked around or chatted with one another, or took a moment to wave at the photographer.

Be safe, be well and please be happy. Be sure to tell those you love that you love them. It’s important, for life can be incredibly short.