Life at the Home20

Hank Jones uses several words and phrases to describe the meaning of serendipity in his book Psychic Roots.  I’d like to use these words and phrases to share a few of my stories.  The first is “fortuitous luck”.

Several years ago, GetAlong and I took an extended vacation around Texas.  I had accumulated enough genealogical facts and theories that it would take us a good week to make the journey.  This trip was more about getting photographic evidence of what I knew existed than it was about searching for the unknown.  Digital cameras were over $1000 at the time and considered a luxury.  By the time we arrived in Lockney (Floyd County)  we were adept at locating the city cemeteries.  They are usually located on one of the main roads going into or out of town, not necessarily the highways, but the roads frequented by the locals.

Lockney Cemetery is in the heart of west Texas, desolate, windy, dusty, dreary even.  The grass was dying in the summer heat and the trees were scarce.  You can see everything for miles and miles.  Well, except for the jackrabbit that almost gave GetAlong a heart attack when he jumped out from behind a tombstone.  GetAlong had never been to West Texas.  I was born and raised there so I was actually looking for jackrabbits.  From the look on his face you would have thought a ghost had reached out and grabbed him.

I had not come across a published transcription of the cemetery but I knew enough family members had lived and died in Lockney that several had to be buried there.  Sure enough we found the graves of Rush and Dezzie Hadley, then Charlie and Martha McCollum and some others.

Charlie was the son of Newman Theodore McCollum and his wife, Susan Caroline Nichols, known as Carrie.  Now there IS a published transcription of the Alabama cemetery where N. T. McCollum was buried and includes a complete description of his tombstone.  It’s a little more detailed than most.  There is no mention of Carrie’s tombstone but since the cemetery is supposedly in disrepair I had assumed hers had been destroyed.

Imagine my amazement when I discovered the grave of S. C., wife of N. T. McCollum, next to that of Charlie McCollum.  It was the last thing I was looking for when I got there and probably the most treasured finding from the whole trip.

Later I found out that she was visiting Charlie in Lockney when she became ill.  She made him promise to take her body back to Alabama if she died but Charlie obviously didn’t comply with her wishes.  I wonder what that says about his true character.

Tags: Southern Genealogy //