Rose Knox
Contributor
One memory from the past that survives today is the old tradition of walking around in an old bone yard. Many people do not remember it, but that is what folks in America often did after the devastation and horrific events following the American Civil War. Such an activity was practiced by Northerners and Southerners as a way to come to grips with that tremendous loss.
North Florida College students recently participated in a tour of one of the oldest cemeteries in the state of Florida; Oakridge Cemetery, which is located in Madison. The purpose of the fieldtrip was to offer students insight into historical graves, which are connected to regional history. The excursion was likewise a culmination of a bigger study on southern writer William Faulkner, as well as a general history of the American South.
During the tour of the cemetery, students stood over tombs of unnamed American Civil War soldiers who were wounded at the Battle of Olustee. The unnamed soldiers ultimately perished in a renowned antebellum mansion, first called Whitehall - but known today as, The Smith-Wardlaw-Goza mansion, located in the heart of Madison. Students also saw many old pioneer graves and learned how settlers from varying states flooded into the region not long after Florida became a territory. The fertile soil of the area was the biggest factor in such migrations.
While lingering among the graves and considering the lives of those reposed there, the students also recited, by heart, the poem, “In a Disused Graveyard” by Robert Frost. Students too heard musings regarding sacrifice from Walt Whitman. Whitman wrote, “. . . the dead, the dead, the dead, -- our dead. . . South or North, ours all . . . our young men once so handsome and so joyous, taken from us. . . the infinite dead. . . in some of the cemeteries nearly all the dead are unknown. . .” Whitman was correct even about this local cemetery, because the 31 soldiers buried in Oakridge Cemetery are all nameless. Only the letters “CSA” mark their small tombs.
Rose Knox, their instructor, is a regional writer. Her latest book, “Mastodons, Mansions and Antebellum Ghosts: Voices Rising up from Florida’s Red Hills,” published by the Florida Historical Society, covers some of the folkloric ideas of the Celts and of the Africans that she shared while standing over various tombs. She says, “I want students to know that they come from a rich history, and the melding of the various cultures is what defines us today. The Celtic and the African storytelling tradition is still alive in the American South, and many Southern ideas emerge in folksongs that speak of hardships and reveal linguistic traits reminiscent of the old world of Europe. Words like “yonder, reckon and ain’t” are words sometimes associated, for instance, with the aristocratic, noble class; some of those words that we think are merely Southern were used by William Shakespeare. I want students to understand the idea of sense of place, and realize how everything we do has a compelling history. And I want them to take note of the legendary Suwannee River that served as an important waterway for transporting cash crops, to places like England and to the Northern states; and how landscape, accents, folklore and superstition play out in songs and in works of art and in literature. Those ideas emerging from various cultures actively influence their lives today, even if students have no awareness of it. I hope to create an awareness. I also want young people to know that a graveyard is full of history and that every soul there lived a life - - - and there is such a fascinating story behind each tomb.”
Several student photographers recorded scenes of the excursion, and here are a few excerpts of what some of them had to say of what they learned while taking the tour. According to Lance Thigpen, “Stretching over eleven acres, this quiet, gothic cemetery is ‘home’ to hundreds of people whose stories and lives are celebrated and memorialized on their headstones. While walking along, our teacher spoke of how the idea of flowers around graves is an old superstition stemming from the ancient Celtic landscape of Scotland and Ireland and emerging also from the African continent. In order to please the wandering spirits, and to prohibit them from causing trouble outside their graves, loved ones would appease the spirits by placing flowers on their graves. Though the living may pass on, their stories, and their lives will forever live on within the graveyard.”
Bethany Mabey, another student, said of what she will remember of the tour. “Our instructor explained to us that the reason many human beings are afraid of death is because that it is the only journey that humans have to travel alone. At the end of our walk, she told us. ‘I hope that throughout your lives, you will stop, look at graveyards and realize each stone has a story - a history.’”
Tianna Knight commented on the fieldtrip stating, “Cemeteries are filled with distinctive stories and experiences that span hundreds of years. Studying those stories will make a soul a much wiser person.”
Just as Rose Knox’s teachers and mentors once shared stories with her, she knows the importance of passing these oral ideas along to others. Words from a famous Southern writer sum up what Knox knows. Eudora Welty reminds us, “The memory is a living thing – it too is transit. But during its moment, all that is remembered joins, and lives – the old and the young, the past and the present, the living and the dead.”
Other participants on the tour who are not pictured were: Bethany Mabey, Megan Murphy, Justin Roberson and Brandon Young