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Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
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Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints, Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture
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West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
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Graves May Stand in Wal-Marts Way |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Thursday, 24 March 2005 |
A Cemetery Where Black Families Buried Their Loved Ones May Be Moved to Allow Growth Around the Store
Greensboro News Record March 23, 2005
It's a little piece of Reidsville's history - a cemetery so old that only 11 of the 429 graves are marked.
The hillside cemetery is on a wooded wedge of land between Scales Street and Freeway Drive, on the north edge of this Rockingham County town.
More importantly, it's a few hundred yards south of a Super Wal- Mart construction site.
Bob Carter, the county's historian, says it was once a spot where black families who couldn't afford cemetery lots buried their loved ones for free.
But with Wal-Mart moving in the neighborhood, the forgotten little resting place on the knoll has suddenly become prime real estate, and the perpetual slumber of those buried there may soon be interrupted.
For development around Wal-Mart to take off, the cemetery may have to be moved - the entire cemetery and all 429 graves.
It's only one option, but one that is being seriously considered.
"It seems to be valuable to the development," says Rockingham County attorney Eugene Russell, who says the site could provide an access to the Wal-Mart area from Freeway Drive, a busy thoroughfare in Reidsville.
On the few marked stones, names like Broadnax, Carter and Gunn are engraved or crudely scratched. But most of the graves are topped with unmarked field stones. Deep sunken grave pits are partially filled in with dry, brittle leaves, fallen branches from locust trees and a carpet of periwinkle.
Whether the cemetery was simply forgotten or neglected is unknown. It's just one of the many unknowns surrounding the patch of land that is unkempt and littered with trash.
According to Carter, prior to the Civil War, the land was owned by a Burton family. It probably contained a family cemetery, he speculates.
Around the turn of the 20th century, a portion of the Burton land was purchased by the Gunns, a black family. From interviews that Carter conducted 20 years ago, he learned that the Gunns allowed people to bury their loved ones on the site.
But what was once a rural spot outside of town now offers a bird's eye view of a Lowe's Home Improvement Center, Food Lion and an ABC store - and the recently scalped land that Wal-Mart will soon occupy.
The 2.29 acres, owned by Little Salem Christian Church, seems to have caught the eye of Tricor Southwest , a development company in Phoenix, Ariz.
Whether Tricor is about to buy the property from the church couldn't be determined Monday. Neither Tricor nor church officials returned phone calls.
However, the county attorney says he was contacted by Tricor in early February. He advised them on the legalities of moving a cemetery, which is an option he says they are considering.
According to Russell, they would need approval from the Rockingham County commissioners. They would also be required to notify the county Health Department about removing the graves and re- burying them.
And they would have to make an effort to determine who is buried at the site and run an announcement in a newspaper to notify next- of-kin of their intentions.
Descendants would have the right to re-bury relatives at another location, at their own expense, or allow their relatives to be buried at the site specified. The last burial there was in the 1950s.
Tricor has begun one facet of the process. In early February, the company sought the advice of Ted Hopkins, a licensed funeral director at Wilkerson Funeral Home in Reidsville.
He and his associates have painstakingly conducted a study of the graves.
Now, orange flags flutter on the hillside, hundreds of them, each pinpointing the spot Hopkins believes someone is buried. He's systematically walked the area, marked the graves, recorded information and diagrammed the locations.
"Right now, it's a lost piece of heritage," says Hopkins.
If it is moved, Hopkins would like to re-bury the bodies in the same pattern in which they are currently interred, assuring that families are kept together.
"It's a delicate situation," says Hopkins, and he wants it done right. "I'm dealing with this from my heart, being very sensitive to the bodies that are there," he says.
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.” Helen Keller
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
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