All but forgotten

My mind constantly hearkens back to the days of old. I think about, even long for the days that have long since passed. I’m an old soul. I always tend to think about my ancestors and how they lived, what their lives stood for. I also think about the ones that I have no discernable connection to other than the fact I somehow do. I feel a deep, deep connection to the past and to the people who lived out their lives in the simplest of terms.

I’m drawn to the old ways, and throughout my life, I have been drawn to folks who are much older than I. I have learned so much and gained wisdom from these old souls that I would have otherwise never had.

As a photographer, I spend countless hours in search of old things to photograph. I ride the backroads, almost untraveled dirt roads and the woods, looking, hoping, that something will be revealed to me.

I have a very strong affinity for cemeteries. I am constantly looking for old cemeteries, not the ones that are in town and kept up by others, but the ones that have been all but forgotten. The ones that are hidden by trees completely off the beaten path. Most are family cemeteries, some have granite markers, but most are defined by indentations in the ground where the graves have settled over time.

This past Saturday I went to photograph one of these old, sacred places. To my knowledge, there are only two people left that even know this one exists. It is in a clump of trees, that until recent history was not discernable to a casual observer. The timber has been cut and now it is easy to recognize if you are in fact looking. As I stepped out of the truck, headed up a steep clay embankment, I looked down to be greeted by an artifact that was left by Native Americans. It made me smile. I walked on to photograph the very unassuming clump of trees. It was a cold, dreary day, desolate even, but I thought that to be so very appropriate for the sentiment of this article.

A branch runs right down the hill from where these old souls were laid to rest. Due to the fact that I found a Native American artifact, I realized that both the Natives, most likely Creek Indians and those others buried in the stand of trees had both lived in close proximity to water. The Indians and those white settlers had lived out their lives in the woods, there were no dirt roads to travel on, most likely trails that were traveled on via horseback. I envy them all for the way of life they enjoyed.

There are other cemeteries that were obviously put in place by folks of means. Plantation owners, wealthy families. I know where there are cemeteries that have a four to five brick wall that surrounds them. Sadly, for the most part, their fate has been the same as the ones hidden in the woods. People, entire families die off and these sacred places are forgotten. Even though, in some cases there are living ancestors who have long since been removed from the area and most likely have no knowledge of these special places.

A friend, a very dear friend who shares my love of the past, has a lot of old, old maps. He found a cemetery on one of those maps that was adjacent to one of the brick-walled cemeteries. In the dead of winter one year, we went searching. We were walking in a mass of trees, there was nothing to denote a cemetery was anywhere around. I saw daffodils blooming out in the midst of a sea of trees. Daffodils are not native. Somebody, at some point, would have had to have planted them. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the indentations in the ground and also what once were wooden grave markers, although time had taken its toll on them. We found the cemetery! It was a slave cemetery. It’s lost to the world, but as long as I’m alive and can operate a camera and type out words on a keyboard it shall most certainly live on.

My friend also saw a cemetery on one of those old maps that showed a cemetery located near Rosier, Ga. We called the landowner and gained access to search the property. I found it in a stand of big, planted pines. It was grown up with various other trees, but it was a sight to behold. A wrought-iron fence enclosed the area which was replete with headstones, footstones and monuments, all of which were very ornate. At the time these folks were buried here, all of those fancy stones would have been impossible to obtain without a fair amount of money. Obviously, there was affluence present as well as great love in this family to have gone to such detail for the lost members. The Rosier Family. I was stunned! I had never really thought about where the name Rosier had come from, but there it was captured in stone.

May we all become more attentive of the memory of all those who passed through before us and may we all do whatever we can to preserve their memory.