I was coming back from Florence when I decided to take a detour onto County Road 5. After traveling a mile or so, I came to County Road 158; a right turn and a quarter mile more took me to the Macedonia Church of Christ on the left and Macedonia Cemetery on the right. Since the cemetery was my intended destination, I veered right.
There are 423 marked graves there (more or less), two of which are very special to me—my great aunt and uncle, Becky and Pat Rogers. I know I’ve told you about them before, but that day brought back a flood of memories as I stood in the cemetery, contemplating their monument. And when I’m flooded with memories, they tend to become written words, spilling over onto blank pages and preserved for posterity. Or maybe just for me.
If I’m going to be completely accurate, that would be Rebecca Jane O’Kelley Rogers and Arthur Patrick Rogers. They married on January 16th of 1916 and remained so until Becky’s death on November 10, 1986 . . . almost 71 years of wedded bliss that were, as with most marriages, interspersed with moments of great joy and others of extreme grief. They were blessed with two daughters and endured the loss of four grandchildren in a devastating house fire that took the lives of their grandson and two granddaughters and caused their daughter to lose the pregnancy she was carrying. She eventually gave Pat and Becky four more grandchildren, but that didn’t take away the pain.
When Becky died her funeral was held at the Central Church of Christ, less than a mile from the home we had driven past every time we went to and from Florence. Each trip found us stopping at that house for a brief visit . . . and a trunk full of watermelons if the season was right. When they were ripe, Uncle Pat would pile them under the huge tree in the front yard along with mounds of cantaloupe. It was a simple farmhouse that always smelled of wood smoke when the weather grew cooler—a one story, white-frame structure with a welcoming front porch and screens on all the windows to allow for ventilation without all the annoying winged intruders.
After the funeral the procession moved down the highway, taking her by the home she had built with her Pat and just another few miles down the road to Macedonia. Fifty-four days later, we gathered again, this time laying him to rest beside his beloved.
One of their girls fixed up the house a few years later and lived there for a while, but now it stands vacant, empty of everything except the memories held within its walls. The porch has begun to sag slightly, and the roof is spotted from a lack of shingles that have given way to the wind. It makes me wonder how much damage there is inside, compliments of the rain and snow. The barn that once protected their farming equipment and stored their hay is barely standing now, snaggle-toothed from missing boards . . . leaning with age and decay . . . nestled into the high grass of the field Pat once plowed and planted.
Every time I travel that way, I slow down at their house . . . it will always and forever be their house. If there are others in the car I point to it, telling them about Uncle Pat and Aunt Becky. About how much they loved each other and how they persevered through the difficulties of life. About watermelons and cantaloupes and wood smoke and Aunt Becky walking through the screen door onto the porch, waving us in so we could “sit ‘n visit a spell”, her long hair pulled softly back into a neat bun. And Uncle Pat filling our trunk with every type of produce he had gathered from the fields.
‘Tis the season of Decoration Days, a time when families gather on the sacred grounds that cradle the remains of their ancestors . . . to honor and remember. Connections are renewed, stories are retold, new memories are made. I don’t know if Macedonia has a Decoration Day or not. I’m assuming so, given the cemetery’s proximity to the church and the wonderful pavilion that occupies the far corner of the church’s grounds. But you know what they say about assuming. So that day, just in case, I took two bouquets of flowers, placing one beneath Uncle Pat’s name and the other beneath Aunt Becky’s.
Learn the stories of those who came before you. Make time to share them with your children and your grandchildren. Because those stories form the foundation of yours and of the generations to come. Their contributions to our lives were infinite in their scope. Perhaps also should be our devotion to maintaining their memory.
About the author: Lisa Shackelford Thomas is a fourth-generation member of a family that’s been in funeral service since 1926 and has worked with Shackelford Funeral Directors in Savannah, Tennessee for over 45 years. Any opinions expressed here are hers and hers alone and may or may not reflect the opinions of other Shackelford family members or staff.
