Although it's hard to read, this is the grave marker for my great grandmother and grandfather. Most of today was spent actually visiting the cemeteries and photographing. It was overcast, but most of the pictures turned out OK. Judy, I sure wish I had your gift.
I visited the Bass River cemetery and there was a guy there mowing the lawn. As soon as I appeared, he shut down his little John Deere and took me on a walking tour. Turns out his grandmother was my grandmother's twin sister. He had a little story about each one and I was scribbling as fast as I could to take it all down. He was a pretty big guy and had the loveliest down home accent. These folks don't realize what valuable information they have in their heads.
On a roll (so to speak) I headed over to Economy and inched my way into the cemetery there. The stone gates were just a little wider than the motorhome, so I had to fold back my side mirrors to get through. Again, I found lots of family plots and did a lot of snapping. Then I realized that there was only one skinny little road through this place and no more than a couple of feet to turn around in. Needless to say, I got stuck. Did I mention it has been raining here - a lot! I finally extracated myself, but when I was done... Well, let's just say, if you have a spare corpse lying around, I know where there's a pretty decent sized hole they might like.
On my way back, I stopped at the little museum in Bass River and picked up the photcopying they had done for me. As they often do, things pull together. I had just taken a shot of William Beattie's grave and within the papers from the museum I found this letter, written by my great grandmother (the one in the grave shown above). It is dated December 6th 1871 and it read:
Dear Aunt,
It is very sad news I have to tell you now. Uncle William is gone to his rest. He started for Halifax the first of last week in a little vessel by Winsor way and the vessel was l0st and all on board drowned. 10 persons in all.
Uncle William and Henry Moore's son, George were all that were from about here. The rest were from the Five Islands. That's were the vessel was from. There were four of the bodies found. George Moore was one of them. He was buried yesterday. They have gone back to search for more. If Uncle is found we will send you word and if not, we would be glad to have you come down. This is a hard trial. I don't know how we will get along. We can only look to Him who doeth all things well.....
Your affectionate niece,
Flore A. Beattie
A tradition I think is very heart warming, here is that people put solar patio lights by the graves. I'd love to go some evening when it's been sunny all day. I'll bet it's a pretty sight.
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