Lone Oak Cemetery, Part 3

It was nearly 17 years ago that my brother told me of something strange at Lone Oak. He had been visiting our aunt's grave late one afternoon, when his attention was caught by a headstone with a woman's photograph. The year of her death was 1919. He was completely alone in the cemetery, so I suppose he was unconcerned about being overheard when he spoke aloud: "Huh. I wonder if she died in the flu epidemic."

According to him, he immediately heard a buzzing in the air. It sounded like a lot of people whispering at once..Out of these sounds, he said, a distinct voice said "yes". It came from the left, from the grave of the woman's daughter. The whispering died away, and he was suddenly aware that the sun was very low in the sky and the wind was picking up. To hear him tell it, he couldn't get out of there fast enough.

It certainly sounded creepy. "Well, if you go out there, just don't go at sunset" he said.

It really was happenstance that the sun was beginning to set when my cousin and I wound our way to the cemetery gates later that year. It had been a long trip, we had spent hours at the library doing research and come all this way. It was less than fortunate timing, but we weren't going to not stop just because of that. Besides, we had  fresh cut roses to bring to our aunt, it would be a shame to waste them.

It was June, the grain was high in the fields. It felt so isolated, with only a few houses and a church across the road. The sun was on the horizon, but never mind, there was plenty of light left to do what we came to do. We laid the flowers for our aunt and decided to search out the grave where my brother heard the voice. It wasn't far - the grave of  a woman named Elsa, next to her daughter, Alma. Alma's photo plaque was sadly broken, but Elsa looked to be a sensible lady, not so scary. We heard no voices, but perhaps it  was at that point I began to feel a little strange.

I said nothing to my cousin, but  kept seeing movement out of the corner of my eye. There was nothing there of course, but even seeing nothing I could swear there was something.. I turned it over in my mind - the movements of trees, shadows? Perhaps those little flags placed on veteran's graves being whipped about in the wind. Nerves. Then again, this cemetery was peaceful. It didn't feel threatening. But why did I keep mistaking the shape of the headstones for people? Why did I feel so sure we were being watched?

We continued walking, my cousin reading out the women's names on the headstones: Mitta, Lille, Alamina.... "such pretty, old-fashioned names"  she said. It was dark enough that we noticed that the cross on the church opposite was lighted. We were nervous enough to feel comforted by it. The wind was really picking up.

              The lighted cross on the church opposite, July, 2012

We were walking toward the west corner - drawn by its relative isolation - when a car sped down  the narrow road through the cornfields. A young man out for a joyride perhaps. The car disappeared into the distance. We kept walking, but my cousin had become remarkably quiet. I wasn't feeling so chatty either. I wasn't scared exactly, but something was becoming very wrong. A strange thought came to me: "That was the first alarm."

 The sky was still streaked with pink but the sun had set.. The sound of the wind in the fields was not comforting. I hadn't realized the way wind can blow across flat land, that constant hollow rushing. It went on and on.

The man in the car sped past again. We saw him through the gates. That was the second alarm, I thought. My cousin kept looking  toward the lighted cross. I was beginning to feel real fear now, the kind that was like an outside pressure forcing my body to move. Five minutes later, the man in the car sped by again, and my cousin who looked  very white in the face, said. "I think we'd better go now." As we started to move toward the gate, the fear came upon us so strong that we began to run. It was a blind panic, terror. It seemed more than the fear that some guy might harass us on a country road at twilight, though that was bad enough. It seemed like something else. It was as if something had begun to yell at us to run.

We didn't speak for a while. When we did, we tried to think what happened. Well, that man in the car was unsettling, no? It could have been him who caused us to panic. But maybe not. There was something else there. We could feel it. That lighted cross on the church seemed almost as if it had a specific purpose, facing the graveyard that way. The next time we went, we made sure we brought a male friend, so we wouldn't have to worry about strange men on country roads. We went even later, at night. We wanted to know what it was that frightened us- maybe it was just that man, after all. Our friend was very jovial, out for a lark. I can't even say what happened - only that one moment we were walking down the lane in the pitch darkness, Jeff chuckling that we'd need a guardian for this - and the next we were all scrambling into the car, scared out of our minds. Even Jeff  was so frightened he couldn't open the simple latch on the gate - we jumped it instead.

A year later, I gave it another try, with another companion this time. I had brought him to show him this place where my some of my family had settled. Once again, we didn't mean to come at sunset, it was bad timing. Again, I felt safe enough not to forgo the visit. Probably I had exaggerated the fear in my mind. We walked about as the sun was setting. It was he who first pointed out the cradle boards around the grave in the west corner - I hadn't yet had the nerve to make it back there on my own. We crisscrossed the grounds, splitting up to examine things on our own. The sun had dropped below the horizon and the wind had begun to pick up the way it always seemed to do as night was falling. Again, I was amazed at how far sound carried there. There was no one to be seen for miles, but I could hear the sound of people working, building something perhaps, shouting to each other and banging away on something metal. .The sounds made it feel less lonely. It was getting quite dark and the wind was howling by then. I was back in the west corner, taking a closer look at those odd, out of place burial sites. They really were intriguing. The fear I'd felt must have been my imagination, it wasn't bad here at all....

I hear a faint sound - my companion is shouting my name into the wind. He's coming across the grounds, very fast, and says come on, we have to go, we have to go. I ask him what's up and he only  takes my arm and says "we have to go right now."  He's taking me back to the car - is prepared to carry me bodily if he has to, he says - when the fear hits me full on. My knees are so weak that I can barely get myself into the passengers seat. We go as fast as possible away from there. Finally my companion says "everything was fine one minute, the next there was a voice in my ear saying "get her out of here, now, run, RUN!'" It wasn't the sort of voice you could argue with.

On the long drive home, I said, "it surprises me the way sound carries - those people working must have been miles away". He looked puzzled. I said, "all those people shouting and banging; it was pretty loud. didn't you hear it?' He says, appalled, "honey, there wasn't any sound out there but the wind"

It would be a long time before any of us went back, but finally, we did. At twilight again, but this time on purpose.

.

Lone Oak Cemetery, part 2

The historical marker at Lone Oak Cemetery reads like this:

"On January 17 1897, German immigrants in the Geronimo area met at Specht school to discuss the need for a community cemetery. The group formed a "Friedhof Gestellschaft" or cemetery association and within a week purchased a five-acre plot of land from Ernst Puls and designated it the Lone Oak Cemetery.The following year, the first burial, that of the one week-old unnamed son of Ernst and Bertha Puls, took place. Since its founding, over 900 burials have taken place and several older 19th century graves have been relocated here as well."

It's a chilling irony  - Did the farmer who sold his land ever imagine the first burial would be his own child?

Perhaps, or perhaps not. Certainly there is evidence of the harshness of country life back then in the number of children's graves at Lone Oak. It's painful to contemplate the rows of headstones in the family plots where a child was lost every year. Even with the inscription wearing off the oldest  stones, there are many carved  with small lambs, slowly succumbing to the weather.

Most of the children's headstones are simple, though one stands out as more elaborate. The grave of a small boy (four or five years old, the inscription was too worn to be sure)  has a marble statue - perhaps a young Jesus or other saint - with a lamb at his side. The pedestal reads "watch until I come". A lot of care and expense must have been put into it. I wondered if his parents had been especially distraught over his loss; or perhaps it was that they had the financial means to express it when others had not. At the foot of the grave, a stone reads "baby love",  a sentiment that seems very unusual to find in a German-American cemetery at that time.and place. I think the answer is probably both - the heartbreak is almost palpable in the stone itself:

Even if the means to decorate the grave of a lost child might have been scarce, the effort was made nonetheless. This infant girl's grave, surrounded by her cradle, overwhelms me every time I see it.

There is another reason it troubles me though. It's not only the feeling of the loss or the sense of passing time. This grave is in the west corner, isolated, no one with her last name nearby. There are only a few graves in the west corner and none seem to be related. It's not likely that these were the graves of paupers - they all have markers - and they are not the oldest graves in the cemetery. They just seem... odd, out of place, distressing somehow.

The west corner is intriguing, if a bit unsettling, and it's possible to get lost in thought there before you realize the sun is sinking and dusk is coming way too fast.

Lone Oak Cemetery, Part 1

Coming further north to the place where I grew up, we took the opportunity to visit the small cemetery where a number of my relatives are buried. It's a quiet place on a lonely road, surrounded by acres of corn and sorghum fields.

As cemeteries go, it's a pleasant one. It's old fashioned, fairly plain, with a  few decorative cedars and one large oak tree that gives the cemetery its name. Many of the headstones are inscribed in German, the oldest  beginning to sink into the earth. Usually, the only sound you hear is the wind.

If one has to be buried, then I suppose it's not such a bad place to take your eternal rest.

Quite a few of the headstones even have photographs, which is nice, I think. It  gives one insight into the lives of  those interred there.

                                                 

 So yes, it's a pleasant place, very peaceful. Not imposing or intimidating, not even scary for a place that makes you contemplate mortality. In the daytime, at least..The problem with Lone Oak cemetery is what seems to happen at twilight, when everyone I've known to go there has had to leave at a terrified run....

Left-Hand Angel

Left-hand angel

So, I was driving through Victoria last week and noticed that the creepy, ever-present angels looming near the cemetery gates seemed a bit different....

Okay, I'm pretty sure the missing head of the right-hand angel was an accident - there is a broken tree nearby and a chip in one wing as well. The burning question remains, however - Where is the head? No, really. Where is it? It was certainly not in evidence nearby. Did someone abscond with it? Do they have it in their bedroom where it stares at them in the night? I mean, those angels always seemed about to turn and look at you, even when they had both their heads....*

 * "Oh, I have an animation program that can make them do that, easy!" said my brother happily, thinking he was being helpful in that special way he has. Erm...no, I prefer not to see my recurring nightmares come to life on screen, but thanks anyway, bro. :p

I've been absent for a while, finding the new blogger format more difficult than I was willing to bother with. But I do have a few new photos at least...