I have written before that old and timeworn cemeteries fascinate me. I love to walk among the old long-standing tombstones that have been holding the information of so many already gone Home and some of my kinfolks that I remember from childhood. It’s never been a daunting or scary place for me to visit as I am mesmerized at the reading on some of the old stones.
The names are amazing and some surprising as I read the inscriptions on each one. I have even written down some of the names, surely not to use them, but to remember because they were so unusual and bizarre. Male names like Douthard, Boley, Edker, Marchmont, and Jeptha. And some of the women’s names were unusual but some were quite fascinating such as Bethana, Luvada, Lovelia, Parmelia, (similar to our Pamela), and one I really liked was, Lissie.
Some of the smaller stones here at this resting place just had the initials so I believe it might have been children as they were smaller stones. Some of the inscriptions were odd but the ones I remember most were “I came here without my consent, and I leave without my consent.” And “I’ll be right back so don’t touch my stuff.”
Some of my people had different names as my maternal grandaddy’s name was Bascomb, my great aunt, Idie, and another great aunt had another of my favorite older names, Esther.
I always told my daughter had her dad not interfered I would have named her, Henrietta Hortense. She was so happy her dad had spoken up.
When we bought these acres out in the country over twenty years ago, we found, by accident as we didn’t know it was there, a small old timeworn graveyard about a mile behind our house with the once owners and residents’ stones and graves hidden entwined with the fallen trees, clinging vines, and debris. This burial ground holds the remains of the Jabez Weeks’ family. His wife, Elvira is also buried there and several smaller stones that were too broken and collapsed that we could not read the names.
This interested me so much we did further digging into the people buried here and found that our land here was once called ‘Weeksville’ and then later ‘Earlyville’. The time frame was before the Civil War. Jabez weeks farmed cotton on this land and other crops and even built a gristmill to grind wheat, a horse gin, a sawmill, even a steam molasses mill, and ran the post office from 1899-1930. History told us he built a school for his workers children. All this once here on the land we so enjoy.
I absolutely love living on this piece of history. We have taken precautions as to never disturb the little graveyard over in the deep recesses of our woods and will always leave the Weeks family to their eternal resting place.
MOLASSES COOKIES – 1 cup of softened butter, ½ cup of brown sugar, ¾ cup of molasses, ( I use a strong favored one), 3 cups SR flour, 2 t. ground cinnamon, 1 t. ground ginger
Mix all ingredients together until smooth and chill in fridge for thirty minutes. Heat oven to 350*. Roll into walnut size balls and press into a greased cookie sheet and bake for ten minutes. Cool on baking sheet before removing.
