Tombstone Tuesday - Florina Adela Nelson, Hillcrest Cemetery, Goodman, MS

Digital Photo Collection 2008 - 2011 - Privately Owned by J. Tracy


Florina Adela Nelson
Born July 12, 1859
In Horsens, Denmark
Died February 27, 1942

Sister of Carlotta Nelson Andersen Fairchild
Buried in Hillcrest Cemetery
Goodman (Holmes County) Mississippi

Tombstone Tuesday - Christianna Frederikka Nelson

Located among many old graves in the Goodman Cemetery, Goodman (Holmes County) Mississippi, is the grave of Christiana Frederikka Nelson. According to her grave stone, Christiana was the wife of W. R. Nelson and is buried near her husband, who was also born in Denmark, within the wrought iron fence that surrounds the Nelson family plot. The inscription on Mrs. Nelson's grave stone states that she was born on October 30, 1833 in Levenholm Castle, Ronden, Denmark, and she died on January 25, 1917.

Source: Digital Photo Collection, privately owned by Janice Tracy

Tombstone Tuesday - William Bailey Neatherland and Martha Elizabeth Garrard

William Bailey Neatherland and Martha Elizabeth Garrard, my maternal great-grandparents, are buried in Coxburg Cemetery, in the old community of Coxburg, Mississippi, near Lexington, the county seat of Holmes County. William Bailey Neatherland and Martha Elizabeth Garrard Neatherland were parents of nine children, including my maternal grandfather, Ralph Ernest Netherland. William was born on May 22, 1845 in Scotland and died in Holmes County, Mississippi on May 24, 1937. Martha Elizabeth Garrard was born on September 8, 1853 in Kentucky, and she died on January 17 1939, just a few months after her 85th birthday. Coxburg Cemetery is the burial place of many other Neatherland/Netherland family members as well as members of several allied families, including the Bass, Harthcock, Killebrew, Pettus, Thomas, Trigleth, and Ziegler families.

Source: Digital Photograph Collection, Privately held by Janice Tracy

Holmes County Cemeteries - Netherland, Pettus, and Trigleth Families

My mother has always told me that everyone I am related to on her side of the family is buried in the cemetery at the Coxburg Methodist Church. Recently, I visited this old cemetery in Coxburg and discovered that almost everyone in that cemetery truly is related to me in some way. Beginning tomorrow, I will be posting photos of graves belonging to many of my ancestors belonging to the Netherland, Pettus, and Trigleth families.

Tombstone Tuesday - Grave Marker of Elmer Unger

Gravestone of Elmer E. Unger

b. Aug. 25, 1874

d. Nov. 24, 1902

Hillcrest Cemetery,

Goodman, Mississippi

(Holmes County)

Source: Digital Photograph Collection, privately held by Janice Tracy

Tombstone Tuesday - Memorial Marker of Ellie Brister Calkins

The memorial marker of Ellie Brister Calkins, pictured here, is located in Brister Cemetery, Holmes County, Mississippi. According to its inscription, Ellie Calkins was born on March 3, 1872 and died on September 28, 1952. The emblem engraved in the top center of this stone caught my eye, and at first glance, I believed it to be a Woodmen of the World emblem. As I looked closer, I read the wording on the emblem: "In Memoriam Supreme Forest Woodmen Circle."

Many Woodmen of the World monuments exist in Mississippi's cemeteries, but I had not seen this emblem before. So I decided to visit the Woodmen of the World website to see if I could determine if a relationship existed between the Supreme Forest Woodmen Circle and Woodmen of the World.

According to the website, the Supreme Forest Woodmen Circle occupied an important place in the Woodmen of the World history. The Circle was created in 1891, and Woodmen of the World founder, Joseph Cullen Root, was instrumental in founding the organization and had envisioned it as a women's auxiliary to Woodmen of the World and made provisions for its existence when he created the original organization. May Falkenburg, wife of Woodmen of the World co-founder, F. A. Falkenburg, served as the Circle's president from 1891 to 1895.

On September 5, 1895, Root and Woodmen of the World Secretary, John T. Yates, took control of the Circle and incorporated it as a fraternal benefit society. Root proceeded to write the Circle's laws and ritual and started its magazine, Tidings. The Circle's offices were located in the same building as Woodmen of the World, and the two groups held joint meetings and scheduled biennial and jurisdictional conventions together. One of the Circle's greatest achievements was the construction of the Woodmen Circle home for orphans and aged members which was built on a 254-acre site in Sherman, Texas.

Brister Cemetery - Sallie B. Terry, "Mother"

Sallie B. Terry

Mother
1861 - 1931

Odd Fellows Cemetery - The Lady in Red

Cruger, Mississippi, in Holmes County, Mississippi, is home to barely 400 residents. Located on the west side of U. S. Highway 49, the town is roughly 70 miles north of Jackson and about 175 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. It lies within the confines of the large area of fertile agricultural lands known as the Mississippi Delta. Places nearby have unusual names, such as Alligator Bayou, Mosquito Lake, and Mossy Island. Located near Cruger is Egypt Plantation, an active farming area of almost 2,000 acres that sees it share of heavy equipment during farming season. But in the summer of 1969, a backhoe dug up more than Delta soil. It unearthed a coffin buried only a few feet deep that contained the body of a young woman who became known as "The Lady in Red."

Below is a partial account of the event as it appeared in Jackson's Clarion-Ledger on August 29, 1969:

"The method of preservation used for the Lady In Red was common prior to the Civil War, when custom-made caskets, shaped to the body, were ordered as one would order a dress. The glass that sealed the coffin was placed over the body, and alcohol was poured inside until it was level full, and then sealed with a cast iron tip. When the back hoe machine hit the coffin, alcohol spilled from the casket and spots of the liquid were seen on the folds of the woman's dress."

Aptly named for the red dress she allegedly was wearing, the young woman in the cast iron casket was said to be well-preserved. It is any one's guess how The Lady in Red came to be buried in the soils of Egypt Plantation, and there is no information to suggest a cemetery was located in the immediate area. One theory is the casket could have "dropped off" something that may have been carrying it to her final resting place.

Gravestone for The Lady in Red

Final Resting Place in Odd Fellows Cemetery

Lexington, Holmes County, Mississippi

(Photographed by Natalie Maynor)

The date of birth shown on the Lady in Red's grave stone is the result of expert analysis of her age. Since there is no way to determine her date of death, the date shown on the grave stone is the day her body was discovered on Egypt Plantation.

The Christmas Family of Holmes County, Mississippi

Entrance to Odd Fellows Cemetery
Located in Lexington, Mississippi

Pictured above is the double gravestone of Lucy and Henry Christmas. Lucy was born in Mississippi in 1843 and died in Holmes County, Mississippi in 1921. Her husband was born a year earlier, also in Mississippi, and he died in 1911. According to the U. S. Census of 1870, Henry, 28 years old at the time, and his older brother, Thomas, age 32, were the heads of households living next to each other in the Eulogy community of Holmes County, Mississippi. Henry's occupation was "physician," and Thomas was shown to be a "farmer."

Living down the road from the two Christmas families were Richard M. and Mary H. Garrard, my great-great-grandparents. Their daughter, Martha Elizabeth Garrard, who later became my great-grandmother, was 12 years old when the census was taken.

In 1870, Lucy and Henry were the parents of two young daughters, Mary, age 4, and Sarah P., age 6 months. According to the census record, both children were born in Mississippi. Living in the household with Lucy and Henry and their two children was Dixon Christmas, age 22, whose birthplace was also Mississippi. Possibly Dixon was the younger brother of Thomas and Henry.

Thomas and his wife, Fanny, age 31, were also born in Mississippi. According to the 1870 census, the couple had three children, Fanny, age 8, Thomas, age 5, and William, age 3. The birthplace for each of the children was shown as "Mississippi." The value of real estate owned by Thomas was shown as "25,000," and his personal property was valued at "2,000."

A total of 37 individuals whose surnames were "Christmas" were enumerated on the U. S. Census of 1870 taken in Mississippi. This figure included the 10 family members living in Holmes County.

Franklin Cemetery

Franklin Cemetery, located in rural Holmes County, is another very old cemetery in Mississippi that contains graves of those who migrated to the state in the 1800's. Family names of some of those who are buried in Franklin Cemetery include Ambrose, Coleman, Drennan, Gage, Gibson, Lipsey, Noel, Sample, and Wharton.

Odd Fellows Cemetery - Holmes County, MS

The Odd Fellows Cemetery in Holmes County, seen here, is one of the oldest in this county where "the Hills meet the Delta." Most of us have seen cemeteries identified as "Odd Fellows" cemeteries, and many who saw the name or its abbreviation "I.O.O.F." may have wondered what it actually meant. The abbreviation stands for "International Order of Odd Fellows." The symbol or logo for this organization that was founded on the importance of living an ethical lifestyle, appears as three unbroken, chained links. These unbroken links symbolize the elements of membership in the organization, "Friendship, Love, and Truth." Membership in this worldwide organization is based in the U.S. and headed by the U.S.-based Sovereign Grandlodge.

The command given to members of this group, whose activities are centered around providing kindness and assistance to others, is to visit the sick, to relieve the distressed, to bury the dead, and to educate the orphan.

Odd Fellows cemeteries are the organization's charge to "bury the dead."

The Odd Fellows Cemetery in Holmes County is located in Lexington, the County Seat of Holmes County. Families represented in this large, old cemetery are the following:
Ables, Autry, Applebaum, Baker, Barbour, Beall, Christmas, Cooper, Cox, DeLoach, Doty, Durden, Farmer, Freeman, Frost, Fryer, Fuller, Gwin, Hammett, Harthcock, Herbert, Hooker, Kearn, Meade, Melton, Noel, Pahlen, Ray, Rosenthal, Sheehy, Shephard, Sontheimer, Stigler, Sutton, Taggart, Ussery, Walton, and Zimmerman.

New Graveyard Rabbit Blog for Holmes County

I am proud to announce that I have started a new blog about the old graveyards of Holmes County, Mississippi. The new blog is "The Graveyard Rabbit of Holmes County." Some of my first posts will be about my own ancestors whose names are Netherland, Pettus, and Trigleth, buried in cemeteries in Coxburg and in Ebenezer.

I hope that you will join me on this journey through these old graveyards where many of your family members may be buried, as well.

Welcome!

I would like to welcome you to my newest blog, "The Graveyard Rabbit of Holmes County."

In October of this year, Terry Thornton, another Mississippian whose writes several blogs, including "Hill Country of Monroe County" and "The Graveyard Rabbit of Hill Country," along with a fellow blogger, who writes "Shades of the Departed," founded a new blogger group named "The Association of Graveyard Rabbits." Membership is by invitation, and Terry was gracious enough to invite me to become a Charter Member.

As a Charter Member, I developed a blog entitled "The Graveyard Rabbit of Attala County," which serves as a sister blog to "Attala County Memories," where I have been writing about family history since July of this year. The mission or purpose of The Association of Graveyard Rabbits" is to promote historical importance of cemeteries, grave markers, and the family history that can be learned from a study of burial customs, burying grounds, and tombstones.

Just as rabbits multiply exponentially, members of the association have grown by leaps and bounds. There are over 50 Graveyard Rabbit blogs now, and they are written from all four corners of the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, and the UK.

I invite you to follow along with me on this journey through the many old graveyards of Holmes County, Mississippi.