It was a beautiful sunny, but cold, Christmas morning as I was driving up Hwy 35 toward Mize. I was in no rush to get home to an empty house, except for the two furbabies that would be happy to see me and jumping for joy over the treats they knew that I would give them.
This really didn't seem like Christmas except for the tree and all the gifts that Santa had brought, at granddaughter Olivia's. I remembered Christmases past with the smell of cooking coming from the kitchen in both my house and many years before, at Granny's house. Trees and gifts and laughter flooded my mind and made me miss Christmases gone by, even more.
I wasn't paying much attention as I drove along, with my memories. I suddenly caught sight of what appeared to be a cemetery off to the side of the highway. I drove on down the highway and found another cemetery in which to turn around. I just had to investigate!
I got back to the old cemetery, now covered with dead vines. I safely parked, off the highway. I got out with my cell phone/camera in hand and
walked through the tall dead grass toward the old burial ground. An impressive, ornate old stone was visible above the vines.
The small graveyard with only three graves was surrounded by an old chain link fence. There were two entrances. Above each entrance, the name of one of the people in the cemetery was in the metal above the gate.
Over the side gate was the name Joseph Walter Sullivan. His was the grave with the ornate tombstone. I did some research after returning home and learned that Joseph was just 25 years of age when he died in the US Naval Hospital in New Orleans on October 14, 1918. Joseph Walter had enlisted in WWI in 1917. His Death Certificate states that he died of Physical Disabilities and Gallbladder.
On August 10, 1918, he had married Grace Elvira Craft, age 16, one of the ten children of Jason Lucifer Luther Craft and Lela Elizabeth Chisholm Craft. After Joseph Walter's death, Grace married Thomas Marvin Mayfield. Grace was near the age of 90 when she died in North Carolina.
The gate on the side (which was probably intended to be the front) had the name "Thomas F. Sullivan's Cemetery" above the gate. Thomas and his wife, Mary Margaret Sullivan Sullivan (a Sullivan who married a Sullivan) were the other two graves in this small cemetery.
The Joseph Walter Sullivan gate was closed but the gate with Thomas F. Sullivan's name hadn't been closed in many years, the ground had grown up around it. I entered through that gate. I was surprised to suddenly be off the ground and walking on concrete, which covered the ground in the entire small cemetery.
The three graves were covered by slabs of concrete laid on top of the concrete flooring. I chuckled at the inscription on the top of Joseph Wayne Sullivan's grave, "Gone but not forgotten." And here he lay, in a small cemetery at the edge of the woods, covered over by dead vines.
