Old Cemetery on the Hill

On this date . . . the 15th day of November . . . in the year 1877 . . . in San Patricio County, Texas . . . occurs the death of Susanna O'Docharty, who was tall and slender with a shock of red hair . . . this Susanna, along with many of her family members, were laid to rest in the Old Cemetery on the Hill . . . it has been said of her that she accurately predicted her own death . . . the following is a portion of what is referred to as her epitaph . . . it is from a collection of stories handed down through generations by oral tradition . . .

And now I lie with them upon this hill
Mingling with Texas earth as seasons come and go.
Chilling northers bend grasses almost to the ground;
Low-hung clouds are misty blankets
Dropping days of rain upon the earth.

Then wild flowers make sweet the air in spring;
At dawn birds chirp and trill as if to wake us,
But we lie immutable, insensible to summer heat and winter cold . . .
While we lie here a segment of a forgotten colony.




Here I lie beside my own --
A hundred springs have come and gone
Since first I lay upon this lonely hill. . . .

The Book our Mothers Read

We search the world for truth, we cull
The good, the pure, the beautiful,
From graven stone and written scroll,
And all old flower-fields of the soul;
And, weary seekers of the best,
We come back laden from our quest,
To find that all the sages said
Is in the Book our mothers read.  

John Greenleaf Whittier
17 December 1807 ~ 07 September 1892
  See also . . . Christmas of 1888 Dear Home Faces

Old Orchard Beach

This is a Time for Remembering

According to a book by Louise McHenry Hicky entitled Rambles through Morgan County, Georgia, she describes this land of some of my ancestors as . . .

This is Gone With the Wind country . . .
The world is still beautiful, filled with wonders;
the sky is blue,
the flowers still bloom,
and birds warble in the magnolia trees. . . .

There was a time when peace reigned
and life was leisurely,
and beautiful
and romantic.

Then came a war between the States,
when all this beautiful living
was gone with the wind. . . .

This is a time for rememberng. . . .

Planted on the banks of time

The continuity of life 

is never broken; 

the river flows onward 

and is lost to our sight, 

but under its new horizon 

it carries the same waters 

which it gathered under ours; 

and its unseen valleys 

are made glad by the offerings 

which are borne down to them 

from the Past, flowers, perchance, 

the germs of which its own waves 

had planted on the banks of Time. 

-- John Greenleaf Whittier

A hundred years ago

. . . Who peopled all the city streets,

A hundred years ago?

Who tilled the church with faces meek

A hundred years ago?

The sneering tale

Of sister frail,

The plot that work'd

A brother's hurt—

Where, O where, are plots and sneers.

The poor man's hopes, the rich man's fears,

That lived so long ago ?

Where are the graves where dead men slept,

A hundred years ago ?

Who when they were living, wept

A hundred years ago ?

By other men that knew not them

Their lands are tilled, their graves are filled

Yet nature then was just as gay,

And bright the sunshine as to-day,

A hundred years ago.