Tomfoolery: Closing a Chapter

This blog post is a work in progress.

Our last stop of the day was the reason this whole trip to the beach got planned in the first place: It was to enjoy a sunset at the Shorterville Baptist Cemetery (Shorterville, AL), preceded by a walking tour of the cemetery, focusing on family plots. My mother's cousin (Elaine Kennedy), a family friend (Robert Edward Phillips, Jr.) and Henry County's leading historian (Larry Smith) had graciously made plans to take part.

This desire of mine to go out there, to the cemetery, for this particular purpose, goes back more than seven years. In early 2010, my wife Kade and I drove up to Shorterville (from Headland, AL), with my mother, to see the old Grace home where she grew up, the land that was in her family and the church cemetery where a lot of her ancestors were buried. She also intended to take us by some Abbeville locations that had family significance. That day, we pulled up at the cemetery, then got out and walked around. Mother, of course, led the way. Starting with her parents' graves, she pointed out the family headstones and told what history and stories she could recall. She then moved on to other plots, sharing some things I didn't know. I had a small camera with a video feature, and we had talked about filming it. But it turned out to be sunnier than we expected, so the idea was to do a dry-run, then return when it was cooler. And we did all the things that day with Mother, even driving by the peanut mill where my grandmother had worked. I also remembered we talked with Jimmy Rane just off of the Abbeville town square, and Mother shared for the first time that he was a cousin of ours. So the day was a success, and we had a plan to return, to put it all on video. Then tragedy struck. Mother died unexpectedly, and so did that opportunity. The silver lining was that her death became motivation for me to pursue and follow through on other projects. Interviewing my dad when he had cancer certainly was one example. But not doing this has always been a regret.

This most recent trip out to the cemetery was a chance to close out that chapter, and bring an end to what Mother had started. Mother's cousin was going to to lead the tour. And although it was hot and sunny at 5:30 PM, there was no chance I wouldn't video it. Kade held one camera, and I held another. I haven't begun to start editing the footage - believe me, it needs some work. And it could be several more weeks till I can complete it. However, I did want to go ahead and post a short sunset video, and share images from that day. I'm still working on the captions, as you can tell. The first ten or so are pictures Mother's cousin brought out. I simply placed them on the hood of my car, and photographed them. And I owe a big thanks to Robert Edward for opening up the church that night, just for us.

Dinah Grace

Elaine Kennedy's grandfather's old country store in background. Elaine's father and a cousin from Ohio near car. Elaine and her sister Charlotte are the kids.