For those who don't know what a hollar is, it is a remote valley in the hills. I have been working on my genealogy for about 8 years. Seems that most of my family is from Kentucky, settling there with Revolutionary War grants. I have found some really neat things. This past year, I decided to go to the Kentucky Derby and do some grave hunting.
No one in my generation had ever seen these graves. I remember as a little girl, helping my dad write letters asking for money from the family to put a fence around the family cemetery.
I reached out to the owner of the property and he agreed to take us to the graves. He said "this is going to be rough" I was serious about seeing them. I have a lot of family buried here so I was up for the challenge.
Kentucky has at least 2 poisionous snakes-the copperhead and the rattler. They get to be huge. They have something called a horse tick. I don't know what that is, but i didn't want one. We sprayed down with insecticide that took 6 washings to get out of our clothes. I wore snake gaiters, jeans, crap kicking hiking boots and carried an aluminum pole. I was going to kill anything crawling near me. My cousin wore these little rubber ducky boots and fell a few times.
I have never had so much fun in my life. I drove the gator. I went a little crazy too. that thing can move. To say this was an Indiana Jones adventure is an understatement. Oh, it was raining too.
When I came across my GR Grandmother's barn, i wanted to cry. I saw where my dad went to school. I saw the road that my grandfather was killed on. I saw the fence that my dad has put up in 1967. I couldn't see the graves because of the overgrowth and you can't lean down because of the snakes, but i started to cry.
I led the charge and took money for a chain link fence. We will be renaming the cemetery too. I am going to post some headstones that are not my relatives.
i have been doing genealogy for ten yrs or so........ i do love exploring grave yards. I am lucky that most of my family and extended family are somewhat close (North Carolina and Virginia mostly) so i have been able to visit the resting places of many ancestors. Would love to go to Wales, Cornwall, Scotland and England one day to see the ones from many years past.
@SheCallsMeCrushDaddy i found out something neat. one of my relatives (9th uncle) was one of Shakespeare's original King's Men. His father was the rector at St. Giles Cripplegate and is buried there. I went twice but could not get in.
Glad you were able to capture this. Not too far from where I live is a small, roadside graveyard where some of my ancestors are buried. Probably a 30 minute drive. I plan on getting pics of it soon
This was a great story. We need more of these. So nice to see the cemetery cleaned out and for you to be able to re-visit and feel the presence of your father. Good on you for leaning in to the excitement of it.
@Freeranger my dad put the fence up because he didn't want cows trampling on the graves. you could see where the deer had trampled it. it made me feel close to him for sure.
What awesome pics. I am so glad you are learning about your genealogy. I love the pic that shows the creepy old barn and that dirt trail. I think Martha A. Rose is happy to know you found her gravesite.
@Barefooter25 i am sure she loves that i put a fence around her cemetery too. The creepy old barn was my great grandmother's. to see it still standing is a miracle. she died in 1940. I would have gone in had it not been in such bad shape...
@Crazywaterspring in Ky, they use prisoners. these graves were a big black hole in our family tree. I was not able to find my great grandmother, her sister or my grandfather because of the weeds. I will go back though.
@akindheart I don't recall. I didn't really know him. I found a half sister who grew up with him on FB years ago. We keep in touch now. She sent me a bunch of pictures of him in the mail. I do things the old fashioned way because the internet isn't safe for me. My dad passed away last April. My favorite memory of him is when he took me flying in his little 4 seater airplane over Catalina Island in California when I was 19 years old. I never saw him much at all.
