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

Brister Cemetery - Holmes County, MS

Although there are almost a dozen members of the Brister family buried in this old cemetery in the Hoffman community of Holmes County, Hockaday Brister, the patriarch of this pioneer family, is the oldest buried there. According to his zinc gravestone, Hockaday Brister was born on December 12, 1781, and he died on September 8, 1858, when he was 76 years, 8 months, and 25 days old.

According to the U. S. Census taken in 1850, "Hockety" Brister, age 70, headed up a household that included his wife, Nancy, age 66, and sons, Drury, age 26, and Zachariah, age 18. Although he was born in South Carolina, his wife and sons had been born in Mississippi. Mr. Brister's occupation was noted on the census as "farmer," and the real estate he owned was valued at $2,600.



Not to be confused with another, much smaller, Brister family cemetery near Bowling Green, also in Holmes County, Brister Cemetery at Hoffman contains over 200 graves. Among those buried here are members of the Allen, Harthcock, and McLellan families. Another Brister Cemetery is located at Rocky Point in Attala County, and additional members of this prolific early Mississippi family are also buried in other cemeteries in neighboring counties.

A Cenotaph in Brister Cemetery

Right: View of the cemetery where old and new stones mark the graves of Attala County residents.

Below: Entrance to Brister Cemetery


Brister Cemetery is located at Hesterville and is believed to have been established in the mid-1840's, when Edmund Brister's sister, Matilda Holland Brister, died and was buried on land that he owned. Although the cemetery began as a family cemetery, it later became a place for members of the public to bury their loved ones. Located in Brister Cemetery is a "cenotaph" erected as a memorial to Morgan Guest/Guess, who served in the War of 1812 in Tennessee. According to the memorial pictured here, Morgan Guest was born in North Carolina on August 22, 1773, the son of Captain Moses Guest, a North Carolinian who served as a Captain in the Revolutionary War. The younger Guest died in Mississippi on February 8, 1853.





Since this is the first cenotaph this graveyard rabbit has stumbled upon, I decided to look up the word "cenotaph." According to Wikipedia, a cenotaph is "a tomb or a monument erected in honor of a person or group of persons whose remains are elsewhere." The word comes from a Greek word which means "empty tomb." A common example of a cenotaph is a monument or a memorial that is erected and dedicated to a group of individuals for a particular deed or service.