My grandparents are buried at Mt. Pisque cemetery in White County, TN. It was decoration day up there. It is a day to bring flowers to the graves and sit around and eat lunch with relatives still living. A reunion of sorts I guess. I was reacquainted with my 2nd cousins and became aware that I had a bunch of 4th cousins (those girls climbing the trees).
My grandparents died in the 1980s and I barely knew them. Being 7 and 8 when they died makes for limited memories of them. I wish I had known them better. Now many of my forgotten memories come from photographs.
Besides my grandparents’ graves, 2 other graves always stand out in my mind at that cemetery. The first one being “Ernest Grant, Chief Lone Wolf.” (1898-1951) So the story goes, the chief had a toothache. He wouldn’t let a dentist pull the tooth and he ended up dying from it somehow. Infection I guess. His picture on his grave shows him in full Indian headdress. I always look for his grave.
The other grave – Horace Nixon Rowland, Jr. (1952-1985) shows a Corvette on the front of the grave. I always wondered how a 33 year old man suddenly looses his life. Was it illness? A car accident? I don’t know. I thought it was cool he had a Corvette on his gravestone.
I was made to feel unwelcomed by the cemetery church. The church is in the middle of the cemetery. They make sure the church is locked up (including the area’s only restroom) during the decoration celebration. This forces visitors to either use the antiquated outhouse or just hold it until they get home. The nearest public flush toilet is a 5 minute drive down the road. Thanks, guys. This annual decoration day is possibly the highest concentration of visitors to the church grounds. Mt. Pisque church could be a very friendly church, however my only interaction with the church is the fact that the church restrooms are always locked.