Today, its know as Cemetery Working, Homecoming, and many
other names, but when we were children, we were taught that it was Decoration
Day. During the long cold nights of
winter, Mother would get the old shoe boxes down with all colors of crepe
paper, cut into the shape of rose petals, sweet peas, and snow balls. After all was in place, we started preparing
for the big day.
With Mother’s guiding hand, we learned to make beautiful
crepe paper flowers. Mother would melt
paraffin, and then we would dip each flower and let them dry. Once dry, we would carefully put them
away. Each box had just so many flowers,
and we always made enough flowers for all of our loved ones in all of the
various cemeteries.
When the big day came, mother cooked a big dinner with
chicken and dressing, dumplings, cakes, pies, and baked sweet potatoes. As the wagon was loaded with all of this good
food, the larger children ran down into the woods along the cool creek banks
and picked the green ferns that grew along the calm, cool creek under shade of
the large old trees and grape vines.
Mixing the lovely green ferns with the flowers of crepe paper, off we
would go, bumpity bump along the old wagon roads to Providence, along the old
pine hills.
Here we cleaned the graves of our loved ones. A box about the size of a boot box had been
made with a door of glass. It was in
this box that we place the wreath of home made flowers and fresh ferns. Almost all of the graves then had these
little boxes to protect the fragile flowers.
Dinnertime was much as it is today, with large tables the
men put together, and the women with their tablecloths and best dishes. There was always more than all of us could
eat. The children would play and the old
men would sit around telling their tales of long ago. We always sang songs of Heaven, Hope, and
Love. There was always a prayer of encouragement
and hope. And then, there were the
goodbyes, as the horses were fastened up to the wagons and buggies.
Starting out with several wagons together and children
running along beside the wagons, soon one of the wagons would turn off, and
then another. Soon we were all alone
once again going down that little road that led to our home.
Mother is now resting beside Daddy and Dewey,
Junior. Nice marble stones are now
placed on the once unmarked graves. The
little wooden boxes that contained the flowers we made at home are no longer needed
to protect those beautiful but fragile crepe paper flowers made with and in
love. We have replaced those beautiful
flowers that took so many days to make with silk flowers, made in Japan. But the memories will live on, as long as
there is life in these old bones.
