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.
Johnnynoir, this barn is for you!
my cousin and our guide with a machete
the old homestead. Absolutely beautiful.
and what it looks like today!
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@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.
