By Sue Parrish

There is nothing that can evoke a more lonesome feeling than driving down a highway and noticing from a distance, a group of grave stones and one loan pine tree surrounded by an isolated fence in the middle of a field being worked by a farmer. This is a sight that brings speculation of a number of possibilities: Is this a burial site for family members of a homestead long gone; the hallowed ground of a church site, whose structure has become part of the past, or is it the cemetery of an abandoned town, whose buildings have also returned to dust? The farmer knows the answer to the question in our minds, as we speed on.

These cemeteries dot the countryside around the nation and are soon forgotten by the descendants of those buried there. Unless, other descendants search for their roots traverse the country trying to locate these elusive ties to family trees. They often find many pioneer burial grounds on private property with some so old, grave markers have long since disappeared and only by a tale told can one try to locate the spot. With the passage of time even these tales disappear and those resting beneath the sod are truly in a private place.

Abandoned town cemeteries slowly fall with the seasons and vandals until only a leaning stone is spotted here and there among the poison ivy and ancient varieties of yellow and purple iris which cradle the fallen monuments devoid of legible engravings. The embellished limestone is also giving up its weathered lambs and clasped hands. Only depressions in the sod reveal what may lie below.

Fifty years ago, under a mighty oak, there stood a Victorian iron fence giving witness to the life and death of a young mother who was lowered into the earth cradling her infant who, as was the fate of many, was carried into rest with her. All that remains today of this memorial to a broken family, is that depression in the earth, vandals having requisitioned the testament to Victoriana while the disappearance of the limestone monuments are held in secret by the song birds in residence. Within another 50 years the memory of that iron fence will also have taken rest and there will be no one to tell a descending “branch” what a peaceful, restful sight it was.