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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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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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History, mystery revealed: passerbys inspiration restores old cemetery |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Sunday, 08 August 2004 |
By Rick Fahr
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A church pew’s distance from the intersection of Honeysuckle and Inglewood Avenue in western Russellville, a square stone rests beneath a monumental oak tree.
A few feet from the smooth-faced rock is another, smaller stone of similar shape.
Could those stones mark the final resting place of Delphia McEver?
According to Bruce Dickey, maybe so.
Dickey’s interest in McEver, and Delphia Cemetery in which she’s buried, began several months ago as he passed by the dark corner lot, shadowed by a cathedral of oak and evergreen trees.
The Russellville man explained that he often drove past the cemetery and finally one day stopped to explore the site.
“I go in, and I see the McEver name and the Hull name. Having graduated from Arkansas Tech University myself, I recognized the names. So, it clicked with me,†Dickey said.
Initial inspection
Dickey’s first trip inside the cemetery gates led to an early summer clean-up day after he saw that many of the grave markers were in disrepair or missing entirely.
Nearly two dozen people volunteered to help.
It became obvious that maintaining the cemetery — which has limited trustee funds — would be a big job. So, Dickey devised a plan to divide the cemetery into 12 sections, seeking volunteers to maintain specific areas. Thus far, about half the lots are spoken for. In the long term, Dickey wants to establish an endowment for the cemetery and adopt by-laws that would formalize its management.
Through his work at the cemetery, Dickey’s interest in the origins of the cemetery grew, and research took him nearly 150 years back in time. It was then that three brothers — Andrew, Brice and Hampton McEver — moved to the area from Illinois. Andrew McEver purchased 160 acres in the valley, in what is now the area around Bradley Lane.
In 1861, Andrew McEver’s wife, Delphia, died. Records seem to indicate that he buried her on the property.
In later years, the brothers erected a small white church building — Delphia Christian Church, commonly referred to as White Church because of its outside paint — at the southwest corner of the property. A deed posted with Pope County shows that Andrew McEver sold an acre of land for the church to three trustees in 1879 for the sum of $5.
Trustees added a half-acre later on, to make the cemetery’s current plot of 1.5 acres.
For the most part, those buried in the cemetery belonged to one of five families related to the McEvers — Benefield, Lewis, Mars, Parrish and Hammock. Although burials occur infrequently — only one in the past couple years — there are about 300 people buried in the cemetery.
But that number includes some guesswork.
“There are many out there that are KOTGs — known only to God,†Dickey explained. “If you have a grave with only field stones, sometimes they’ll put a bigger stone at the head and a smaller stone at the feet. ... Evidently, a lot of people buried there were just poor country farmers, and their children who died or whatever. They never had the money for a marker.â€
Many graves in the cemetery have nothing more than a stone marking them. Dickey said that he is working to tag each grave with a number so as to create a complete census of persons buried there.
“I am trying to locate and mark all the graves that have no monument. You simply have field stones, and in a few cases, those field stones have been moved out of place.â€
Although Delphia McEver’s remains may well be within the cemetery, the oldest monument dates to 1886/1889 and marks the grave of Nora and Lily Hammock, whose mother’s maiden name was McEver. Etched into the monument is the name “J.F. Fleming†of Morrilton. Dickey found the same inscription, that of a known monument maker of the day, on the girls’ father’s grave at Harris Cemetery near Centerville.
Dickey said that his work at Delphia has helped him appreciate the people whose names he has seen etched in marble and scrawled on stone.
“A man’s wife dies. He buries her on the corner of the property. They need a church. They build it on the corner of the property. That’s hallowed ground. ... It wasn’t really a cemetery. It was a church. It was a thriving community of farmers. They lived here. They died here, and this is their story, really.â€
http://www.couriernews.com/story.asp?ID=6351 |
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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
“The Impartial Friend: Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all -- the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved.” Mark Twain
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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