Over the Fence: A Friendly Neighbor Chat

 

Hello, loves.  After years of having morning coffee or tea chats I thought I'd retitle this section as Over the Fence, harkening back to the days when neighborhood women and men stopped to speak to their neighbor as each was puttering about outdoors.  Women might be hanging out laundry, or supervising  children at play or gardening.  Men might be doing some diy project or lawn work or mechanic work.  Whatever the task, I recall Grandmother often spoke to her neighbors over the fence and so I thought how cozy it would be to return to that gentle way of visiting.  Mind you, you might slip through the gate and come have a visit with me  but we start by chatting over the fence...

We were working in the graveyard again this morning.  I said "Just one hour..." but it almost always moves on towards being two before I start to feel I've done enough for the day.   Afterwards, John sits down on the plinth that has fallen from Catherine's grave and I sit on the pedestal portion (always apologizing to her first and thanking her afterwards) and we survey the amount of work we have done or have left to do or both.  We are making very real headway.  Soon the whole of the interior will be trimmed of young trees and privets that have gotten out of hand and the thorny vines that wind about everything from the ground to the top of the trees.   

 After our first morning of work in the graveyard we'd cleared Capt. and Catherine Wiggins' graves...

John joked this morning as he was working about Benjamin Beeland's grave that if he should hear a knock or someone should suddenly sit up he was going to run and I'd be left behind.  "That's just fine but I'll stay right here.  I've a few questions I'd like to ask him if he does make an appearance, like how he came by the land and house and why he loved it so as he himself declares in his will...I'm just going to ask all the questions I can think of!"   John laughed at that.  

Click on this picture to open in a new tab and it will enlarge itself.  Then you can see Benjamin Beeland's stacked stone grave is in the left corner there.  John appears to be looking right at him in the foreground.  That's how far we'd gotten last week.  This week we're concentrating on the near left corner of the cemetery which is thick with privet, hawthorne and thorny vines.

Next phase of work, once we make it all about that last interior fence line, will be to rake the interior, haul out the trimmings and then mow it as closely as we can.  I'm hoping in removing the debris we may start to see any 'sinks' or old unmarked graves that exist.   As it is now, I just don't see them at all.   I did find a buried brick this morning but no clue if it might mark an old grave.  It certainly doesn't line up in a way that says it might.   It seems I remember more marked graves as a child, but I'm not certain of that.  I might well have memories of this graveyard and the old church graveyard tangled up in my head.  And it's not as though we were ever allowed to play in this cemetery because the graves were more fragile, especially Captain Beeland's grave.

Rufus likes the graveyard, too, and he often lies down next to Catherine Wiggin's fallen headstone.  I wonder if once upon a time she didn't have a little dog herself because Rufus certainly does seem rather fond of her and it's near her he lies most often unless he's chosen to be right next to me as I work.  He is a woman's  dog, truly.  He's fondest of the female of all species and makes it plain that he is a lady's man all around, but he does adore John who isn't overly fond of dogs.  I suppose he feels that it is John's charity that allows him to remain on the property but I dare say John would rather not face the fierce females upon this place were he to ever determine he might banish Rufus.

I confessed to John my desire to put a bench or two in the graveyard and he looked at me and said "Well of course!" as though it was a given already.  I lobbied for one of those molded concrete affairs but he suggested we might find a cast aluminum one which would be better priced and portable enough for us to move out there.  He's quite right.  He's suggested the same for our yard and I am reluctant only because I think it will blow away but I suppose within the confines of the enclosing fence it's unlikely a bench will blow away in the cemetery.

It is a lovely, peaceful old place really and I'm glad, so glad!, that we've finally got access to it so we can take it back from the neglectful state it had fallen into.  It does make me feel a little guilty though.  There are family graves we ought to be maintaining  and don't.   Memorial day cemetery cleanings never were part of our family lines though it was apparently a tradition in many places when this 'holiday' first came about.

Shirley asked me several questions the other day and I thought today would be a nice time to address them and give my answers.

First was her question of whether there were once an old township here and the answer is "No."   When this property was in it's original deeded state, it was a 202 1/2 acre lot of land which was part of the 1821 or 1827 land lottery.   This was a lottery held to allow widows, orphans, illegitimate children and war veterans to claim a plot of land courtesy the government.   Originally the land here  west of the Flint River (just three miles distant from our home and possibly closer in some areas) was all  Indian lands.   Through negotiations, the land was ceded over to the US as far as the Chattahoochee River which is the western most border of the state of Georgia and divides our state from the state of Alabama.  The Indians who dwelled here were mostly Creeks and they readily gave up the land.  There were no battles here.  There were later when the land west of the Chattahoochee was ceded over but not here.  

Supposedly, sometime in the 1770's a man built a home on the front side of this plot of land (I am quoting here from the recitation of the last owners of the house and don't know if this is fact or not) about the time frame of the house being built.  If so, it most assuredly was Indian land still and would be 50 years more before the land would be US Territory.   The previous owner said the land was granted to the man from the King (or Queen) in England but again, I do not have any facts to back up a bit of this.

The house was built in the style of a Federal home with double front doors and a double chimney either end and a steep enclosed, New England type stairwell that went upstairs. The house also  had a detached kitchen and this home and the kitchen stood on the land until my early 20's when lightning struck the house and it burned to the ground.   I was sorry as could be to see that old house gone as I'd always loved it.  It was as much a part of this property as Granny's little house on the hill and to this day I look from the east facing windows expecting to see the backside of that house still over on the hill it once sat upon.

At some point  Benjamin Beeland, an 1812 war veteran moved into that house, and named it Piney Woods.  In his will he mentions his second wife Sarah and several children (including Catherine upon whose grave I sat this morning).   His grave is in the cemetery, a row of stacked stones with a headstone.

So that answers the first question in part.  It was not uncommon in Georgia to have family plots here and there.  As I shared with Shirley, I can tick five off on my fingers that lie within a mile or less of this home and those are just the five I know of!   There may well be more graves sitting in the middle of fields or wooded areas.   Only one of the five I mention, appears it might be part of a church and I'm not absolutely certain of that.  

The other question  from Shirley and a comment from Karen both dealt with the same thing.  The question was 'Why are there still things in Granny's house?'

When Granny went into the assisted living facility, even though we were certain she'd never again be able to live in her home, my mother and brother  left everything as it was.  I suggested we might want to clear out the fridge and freezer and the canned goods but no, they wanted it all left alone.    I made one trip into the house, at Granny's request, to retrieve a few things she mentioned wanting at the assisted living center and boy were my brother and mother irate at my daring to go inside the house.  They locked the door and hid the key, literally! 

When Granny died, Mama was shocked to discover that she'd left the house and two acres of land to my cousin, my brother and myself.   For some reason, Mama had assumed that property would be hers.  This made her rather angry.  While the will was being executed Mama made many forays into the house to remove those things she wanted for herself, allowed my niece to go in and get what she wanted, and my brother's girlfriend at the time to do so, as well.  Anything I or my daughters wanted (a jar of buttons, a rocking chair, a book) was not given to us nor was I allowed any entry into the house. 

The will named Mama as executrix of the estate and the way the land was to be parceled out was up to her.  To make things as difficult as she might (her own words not mine) she insisted that the land be left  as a whole parcel held conjointly so that not one of us could sell or divide or live on  it without the absolute consent of the other two.  Since my brother is known for his contrariness and my cousin for his careless ways, it was pretty well wrapped up.  I did ask that any portion of the property that might touch my land here would be my portion only to discover that in fact there is a tract of land between my place and Granny's that was my brother's and he refused to give me even a portion of that in exchange which was his right.  

So for several years I paid a portion of taxes on a piece of property that I was locked out of even walking upon.  Eventually I gave up thinking I'd get a portion at any time and I drew up a deed giving my property to my brother.  Unbeknownst to me, my cousin had just sold him his own rights to property so it all became my brother's.    Everything was in Granny's house as it had been for about 10 years by that point.

Eventually my brother decided to sell all of his property and my son bought it, which included Granny's house and land.  By that time the place was so grown up that you couldn't get through to the yard of the  house from any aspect.  

Sam was able to buy a tractor this year and he started bush hog clearing the land.  He contacted me a couple of weeks ago and said "There's a path to Granny's from your house now."  It was a joyful thing to me last week to go up the old field path and walk into the yard through the cattle gate that separated the fields from the yard itself.  It's wildly overgrown in places and skunks and foxes have apparently burrowed the land deeply.  Somehow in the intervening years since Granny left the house (about 2008) the place has shrunk.   I told John I remember sitting on the front porch looking out over the yards and it did seem the pole barn was much further away and the pump house as well, not to mention the fences.  It almost seems like they've all drawn in closer to the house, huddling together as it were, in an effort to keep out what they might and remain as intact as they can.   The atmosphere of peace that always permeated the place is there yet.

Bess has completely cleared the line from their own yard up to Granny's back yard and is slowly working  to try and clear the whole of the yards.  God bless her for the task is far more daunting than the cemetery project we've taken on.    I am sure Bess too must feel the peace that is connected to that land.  One day, she and Sam mean to build their own house there on that property, somewhere along about where the pole barn stands.  

Now that my son owns the land, it's almost as though it's mine once more.  Indeed Bess told me the other day that she was never happier than when Sam told her he'd cut a path so that I could go into the yard once again.  "T consider it far more yours than ours, anyway." she told me in a text.  That's a very sweet thing for her to say.  I lay no claims to it other than taking the occasional moment to go stand in the yard and remember all the many mornings Granny and I sat on that side porch and talked over everything under the sun.   I've asked to claim a few flowers to plant in my own yard as they reveal themselves once more.  I suggested that if anyone went into the house they might get me a large cast iron skillet that once belonged to Granny.  I'd much admire to have that of all the things there might be that would entice me.  But truly nothing is needed.

I know  that I was robbed of something that Granny had meant to bring joy.  It's a shame and I might gnash my teeth and rage but in the end what I had of Granny went far deeper than a piece of property from which I could get no use.  Granny seemed to have some sixth sense of how things might turn out because she gave  me some beautiful things.  A creamer that belonged to a great aunt of hers,  a plate that belonged to another, a couple of quilts that my great grandmother had made that were still in fair shape.  It's true that if I  went into the house itself, I'd likely see dozens of things that would stir memories.  I'd much love to give to my daughters the two items they'd requested long ago and were denied.  But I'm glad that I learned that there were so many deeper, more meaningful things, that Granny had given me that no one ever had the ability to deny me once they were part of my makeup:  she gave me the same joy and delight in my own grandchildren that she had in us as children,  a love of flowers, an appreciation of nature, a thirst for knowledge, and a spiritual foundation that has lasted me through a lifetime.   But best of all, the  knowledge of her love for me, for all of us.   No one can take those things from my grasp and God willing, I shall pass them on to my own family members and they too shall learn to cherish the same things.

I guess that's about all I have to share today.  Stopping to do this chat, I realize how hard I did work this morning...I'm glad I've got an easy meal for supper tonight.   Talk to you all again really soon!