TOTAL READ TIME: 4 Minutes
Imagine being an eleven-year-old girl and are told enthusiastically, “Get in the car, we are going to the cemetery!”
That was my mother beginning a new detective’s journey, with an invitation for me as her apprentice in training.
I knew by then my mother followed her curiosities. I watched her pick up (and lay down) several hobbies and projects throughout her life. Her primary role was homemaker and chief operating officer of the household. Of course, she did the expected things of the era like knitting, gardening and embroidering. She also followed her yellow brick road of peculiar interests, like learning tatting – a near-obsolete form of lace-making, restoring ruined photographs from the late 1800s and professionally valuing old silver coins.
I was the baby of the family. After three decades of child-rearing and that job near complete, her attention went elsewhere: she became a self-appointed historian, overnight. I believe she felt it was her duty to make sure legacies lived on. This included her ancestors, her husband’s ancestors and our community.
Somehow, in the roles and responsibilities section of her historian job role, appeared cemetery investigator. My mother had a suspicion that there were more graves buried than headstones appeared. With this as our hypothesis, we started this journey at our county’s courthouse on a beautiful summer day. I recall that I wished to be anywhere but there.
The clerk invited us back into a dark and musty corridor and I recall the creak of metal filing drawers – like the rusty tin man that hadn’t moved in ages. Out popped the proper binder with names of those buried in our community’s rural cemetery.
I moaned and groaned as my mother drove to our next stop: the cemetery. I became even more desperate to end my training by convincing my mother she could do it by herself. But she made it sound like a magical journey of meaning as we walked the rows of stones.
“There should be a headstone here. Baby [last name] was buried here, 1921-1921.” We kneeled down with garden tools in hand, which served as official archaeology instruments.
“Be careful,” my mom said as we gently tapped the trowel into the soil an inch down, “we don’t want to wreck the headstone.”
I didn’t believe we would find anything, but then I heard a distinct “clink” of the trowel followed by an excited “gasp!” from my mother. Unbelievable to me, under two inches of topsoil and grass we found our first headstone.
Slowly we pulled up soil and grass, exposing decades-old cement. We went back home to get paint brushes – I mean, more archaeological tools – to gently sweep away the dirt to see if we could read any of the imprints.
Sure enough, we soon read the inscription: “Baby [last name]. 1921-1921.”
We repeated that exercise for every plot that indicated a grave but no headstone appeared. In several cases, we found small cement markers buried under topsoil like the example above. In most there was none. With love and responsibility in her heart, my mother found the funding (perhaps from the county or from our church) to purchase small proper headstones that would remain for decades to come.
I didn’t realize how much that experience would shape my life. My mother helped to restore the remembrance of every life in our community. Every single life made a difference. I’ll never know the story of the family whose baby died after only a few months. I just know that that life made an impact – even now a century later through me and those who read these words.
Over time we visited more cemeteries, looking for family ancestors. My mom would point out the extra-beautiful headstones, making sure I learned to respect intricate details that most overlook. Sometimes we would find a special inscription that made my mom think about the legacy she wanted to leave. It made for a beautiful conversation as we walked through the rows of those that had passed before us.
Today when I visit a cemetery, it brings a pang of excitement. It sparks this memory that only my mother and I shared. I think about her legacy that lives in my heart. I think about the legacy I want to live.
I don’t know what my kids will remember about me. It likely won’t include cemeteries – but perhaps I’ll find a detective journey of my own.
They will be my perfect apprentice.