I stopped visiting graveyards, because I haven’t written about them for awhile and was getting behind.  In this “round-up” post, I’ll catch you up on where I’ve been lately, so that I can go back to my explorations next weekend.
Emily and I took the little kids hiking in the mountains a few weeks ago, and we made a stop at the graveyard in front of Little Greenbrier School.

This is a graveyard, not a cemetery.  There is nothing manicured or fancy about it.

All the same, it looks a lot better now than it did the last time I visited it (this being a stop along our favorite hike to the Walker Sisters’s Place and just a stone’s throw from Metcalf Bottoms, our go-to Smokies picnic spot).   Then, most of the stones were . . . stones.  Rocks, really, carved by hand and illegible.  You can still see them in the picture above, but someone has now done this:


This just delights me, because as you know by now, I can’t stand the thought of people being utterly forgotten.  I want to be able to at least know the names of the folks who rest in the graveyards I visit.
Here you will find lots of Walkers, and Ogles, and other names familiar to anyone who lives in the area or visits many of the graveyards in the Park, reminders that this was once a community, not a tourist attraction.


And always the babies.


Closer to home, I visited an even older graveyard, one I first discovered many years ago while exploring a side path in a favorite park.

The park is Charter E. Doyle Park in South Knoxville.  If you don’t live in South Knoxville, you’ve probably never been there, but it’s a great park, with walking tracks, this trail,  TWO dog parks (by size of dog), tennis courts, picnic tables, a shelter, a playground, a baseball diamond, and lots of grassy space.
And up a side trail, surrounded by a chain link fence covered in honeysuckle, and sadly overgrown . . .



There’s an old family burial ground.  I don’t know who all might be here, but one person was considered important enough to deserve some special notice.



That’s a pretty cool discovery for an afternoon at the park, don’t you think?
Its been two months since I visited Valley Grove Baptist Church Cemetery, which is another one I drive by regularly and so was always interested in.  However,for whatever reason, I just didn’t find that “special something” there that compelled me to write its story.  Still, I want to include it in this roundup for anyone who might be interested.

It’s not in good condition, which always distresses me and often surprises me, especially in a graveyard adjacent to a thriving (judging by its website) congregation.  The first burials here took place in the early 1900s and the last in the 1920s; it does not seem to be in current use today.




Hodge (sometimes Hodges) was the dominant surname here, along with Kidd, Smith, Gray, and Yarnell.


I’m always on the lookout for interesting epitaphs like the one below.

Y’all know the baby gravestones always get to me.  And this one was especially sweet:  “Baby Ray.”  Bless his little heart, and his parents’ too.

The best feature of this graveyard is its bucolic setting.

That’s the end of “Adventures in Cemeteries” for this week!  I’ve got one local and one out of town one yet to write about before I will be quite caught up, but each deserves its own post.
Would you like to read about the other graveyards I’ve visited?  You can find them below.
Dust to Dust
Graveyards and Country Roads
A Visit to Third Creek Cemetery
And This Is Why They Call It Gallaher View
An Afternoon at Grassy Valley
Dutchtown, Loveville, Graveyards, and Progress