A Small Cemetery

This is the first chapter of my third great-grandmother book. I do not have a title as yet.

Chapter One

A Small Cemetery

My cousin’s son went there years ago. He lives in Texas, and when he came to Chicago on business, he rented a car and went to the small cemetery in Lake County, to wander among the graves of his ancestors.

I had found the cemetery online with pictures and the graves plotted. This was a place where my great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, and great-great-great grandparents were buried, along with other relatives. When a road was built through the old cemetery, the bodies were moved from what had previously been their final resting place to this site,. The cemetery is across the street from a horse farm on a quiet country road close to the border with Wisconsin.

We found the cemetery easily and parked our car across the street. We had come to Chicago from our home in Wisconsin for my fiftieth high school reunion. It had rained all week and the grass in the burial ground was long, plush and very damp.

We wandered and I noticed the names on the gravestones. I told my husband I thought a third of the people in the cemetery were relatives.

We had lived in Lake County for six years in the late sixties and seventies. My cousins had lived in Lake County during their high school years. The fact our ancestors had lived here had not brought us to live in this county, or had they? In the sixties and seventies I was taking care of my dependants, not checking into the lives of my ancestors.

I found the Civil War commemorative stone for my great-grandfather Benjamin Willard Ames, a small white stone sticking out of the ground. And then I saw the beautiful red marble stone with his name, that of his wife, Hannah Sluman Ames, and that of two babies. It was not an old stone, perhaps no more than five years old, beautifully engraved but with death dates from over a century ago.

My great grandmother, Hannah, became despondent over the death of her son. As a rambunctious two-year-old, he had died falling off a pile of wood. She had sought help from family and even lived with her parents for a while, but her despondency never lifted and she took her own life. Her husband, Benjamin considered committing suicide an unforgivable sin, and had all her belongings destroyed and demanded that no one was ever to speak of her again. But obviously, someone had, marking her most recent final resting place with the beautiful stone marking her grave.

An elderly man appeared in the cemetery. We went to speak to him and found he was a volunteer who helped with cemetery maintenance. He apologized for the long grass, but it had been a rainy week. He asked who I was and when I told him which family I was from, he told me he had known Shirley Murphy, my father’s first cousin. It was one of those “small world” moments. Shirley had attended my father and mother’s fiftieth wedding anniversary party at our house in Wisconsin.

“Shirley is buried on the other side of the cemetery. Since she was in the army she has a military marker.” So, we went to find Shirley’s grave. It was as he had said, a military marker, and next to it was a beautiful red marble stone, like the one for my great-grandparents, which would have been Shirley’s grandparents, beautifully engraved with the names of her father and mother.

I know Shirley had put the stone for Hannah and her family in the cemetery, to honor those ancestors close to her, to honor a woman although she had committed what some considered the unforgivable sin of suicide, and even acknowledging an uncompassionate husband. They were her ancestors, those who had gone before her, my ancestors, those who had gone before me.

And I looked around and I knew why my cousin’s son came here. I knew the mystery of the place, of a town that once was long ago, of processions to bury the dead, of moving the dead to new graves, praying over them, and cutting the grass on their graves.

And quietly we left, closing the small gate, getting in our car. We drove to the original site of the cemetery, trying to imagine what the small town there would have been like, trying to determine where my ancestors could have lived, driving to the town where my great-grandmother grew up, and back to the hotel where my high school reunion dinner would take place.

Unfortunately, my husband had only brought one pair of shoes to the reunion, shoes now completely soaked through from the long, damp grass of the cemetery. He spent some time in the bathroom drying them out with the hair dryer.

The magic stays with me as it does my cousin’s son. Sometimes one goes places and can feel something, something unexplainable. That day I stepped on sacred ground, walking among spirits who gave life to my grandparents, whose ancestors came in pioneer wagons from Pennsylvania, and before that from New Hampshire and before that Massachusetts and before that from across the sea, long long ago.

I think visiting ancestor's gravesites would be interesting, Carol, and it would fit right in to your story about your great-grandmother.

I'd made some suggestions, but then realized your chapter wasn't on the WIP thread, so I didn't know if you wanted them or not.

Sounds like a good beginning.

Brenda,

This is a work in progress. Most of the book is written in bits and pieces but needs to be put together, woven together is probably a better way to put it.

The story as it will appear, is how after her mother committed suicide, my grandmother married a man who had contemplated suicide and battled depression. She was a tough lady and I think her mission in life was to keep my grandfather alive, and she accomplished that.

My mother and father never knew Hannah had committed suicide until they were in their eighties. My mother said that she wished she had known, that she would have been more understanding of her mother-in-law. I don't see past experiences as excuses for bad behavior, but I see them as reasons for misunderstood behavior, if that makes any sense.

I put this here because I am working on first chapters, one of my weakest areas of writing.

Suggestions are very welcome and I value your expertise.

Carol

Carol wrote:

Quote :

I don't see past experiences as excuses for bad behavior, but I see them as reasons for misunderstood behavior, if that makes any sense.

Carol, That makes perfect sense. Our families' past generations have a strong influence on the present, especially when we are less aware, as your mother noted.

I also know what you mean about beginnings. I was shifting some files yesterday, and came across a print-out of my first beginning of A Myth...

"As a student of mythology and admirer of Joseph Campbell and Audie Murphy, I have decided to put the two together in this study of Audie Murphy as our twentieth century mythological hero, now that the century, indeed the millenium, is coming to a close. W have a great need today for both heroes and viable myths."

Beginnings can always be revised. That's one of the things I learned as a writing teacher. Once the story gets underway, the style will emerge and begin to flow. I really like the last four paragraphs. When you reached that point, your were clearly into your stride.

I especially like these sentences:

Quote :

I knew the mystery of the place, of a town that once was long ago, of processions to bury the dead, of moving the dead to new graves, praying over them, and cutting the grass on their graves....
The magic stays with me as it does my cousin’s son. Sometimes one goes places and can feel something, something unexplainable. That day I stepped on sacred ground, walking among spirits who gave life to my grandparents, whose ancestors came in pioneer wagons from Pennsylvania, and before that from New Hampshire and before that Massachusetts and before that from across the sea, long long ago.

Ann

Carol,
I look forward to seeing how this work develops. Referencing Shelagh's post, Are you in the swooshing or the bashing mode?

This reminds me of going to a cemetery in Texas to visit ancestral graves of those I had never met. It was quite a spiritual experience, and the first of many. I have since visited many other gravesites, and always come away with a sense of awe.

There is so much potential here. I am certain you will either bash or swoop it into shape and have a wonderful story to tell.

Carol, your story sounds interesting, but I’m curious. If the story is about your grandmother, why not begin Chapter One with her story and use what you have, so far, as a foreword?

I think you could do a little rearranging on what you’ve written so far, such as cutting the first paragraph and opening with the next one. And if you drop or rename the chapter title, A Small Cemetery, the next line, if you make the changes, would be more of a grabber.

For example:

A Place of Remembrance
(or something similar so you don’t have the word ‘cemetery’ too many times


I had found the cemetery online with pictures and the graves plotted, a place where my ancestors, from my great-grandparents to my great-great-grandparents, were buried.

My husband and I wandered through the rain-dampened plush grass, and I noticed the names on the gravestones.

“I think a third of the people buried here are relatives,” I told him.

We had come to Chicago from our home in Wisconsin for my fiftieth high school reunion, and...???? What? Here you might insert the reason for your interest. You might say something like:

We had come to Chicago from our home in Wisconsin for my fiftieth high school reunion, and since I was writing a book about my ancestors, I had an interest in finding out as much as I could. Years ago, my cousin’s son visited the cemetery. When he traveled from Texas on business, he’d rented a car and wandered among the graves of his ancestors.

And of course, reword according to your own taste. This was just an example. Then, as your husband and you stroll the cemetery, you could weave in more info, such as the graves had been moved, and so on.

Like Ann, I love the last four paragraphs.

This could all be tweaked, even my suggestions. I try one way, then another, over and over to see how it flows, cutting, rewording, borrowing from another paragraph. It's that little editor on my shoulder, always telling me it could be better.

The main thing is, don't get hung up on the beginning. Look to those last four paragraphs as a way to keep going. "Swoop" in there, and just tell your story. You can rewrite the beginning later.

Ann

Brenda, Zada, Abe, and Ann,

Thanks for the comments. I am definitely keeping the last paragraphs.

Zada, your comments are what validates my writing, that someone can relate to what I am writing, to their own lives, their own families. I'm hoping to get a publisher that will sell this book on a genealogy site like ancestry.com.

This could be a forward or a first chapter, at least a beginning.

I think I will let Hannah speak to me.

Carol