WEBVTT - Down Cemetery Row

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<v Speaker 1>This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,

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<v Speaker 1>and we tell stories about well just about everything here

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<v Speaker 1>on this show. And one of our favorite regular features

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<v Speaker 1>is a feature called Final Thoughts. And today our regular

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<v Speaker 1>contributor Bill Brake tells us a story from his little

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<v Speaker 1>town Antrim, New Hampshire.

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<v Speaker 2>Andrim's voters elected me a cemetery trustee in twenty eighteen.

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<v Speaker 2>I'd help two other trustees govern the town's for public cemeteries.

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<v Speaker 2>It's meant receiving occasional telephone calls from relatives of deceased

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<v Speaker 2>persons who wanted to be buried in Antrim. Among the

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<v Speaker 2>usual reasons for this or that the deceased was born

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<v Speaker 2>or spent many happy summers in the town. The callers

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<v Speaker 2>generally asked about getting the grave dug. I gather the

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<v Speaker 2>correct term of art is opening the grave. I referred

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<v Speaker 2>them to a pleasant, good natured and compassionate gentleman with

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<v Speaker 2>a back hoe who performs this office for a funeral

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<v Speaker 2>parlor in the neighboring town of Hillsborough, and for anyone

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<v Speaker 2>else in the area who needs his services. Antram's public

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<v Speaker 2>cemeteries are Center Meetinghouse, Hill, North Branch and Over East.

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<v Speaker 2>I visited them all before my election. The town's Department

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<v Speaker 2>of Highways had maintained them well. Three of the four

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<v Speaker 2>are now full with many dark gray, heavily weathered slate

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<v Speaker 2>markers from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Only North Branch

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<v Speaker 2>is active, which is to say new customers are welcome. Recently,

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<v Speaker 2>after a friendly and sympathetic chat with an older woman

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<v Speaker 2>who wishes to bury her son's remains here, I strolled

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<v Speaker 2>down to Cemetery Road, a well kept dirt road that

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<v Speaker 2>borders my property, just beyond an unnamed stream that flows

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<v Speaker 2>from my land towards Steele's Pond and the North Branch River.

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<v Speaker 2>It was amidst the heat wave in mid July twenty nineteen.

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<v Speaker 2>The slightest breeze was welcome. As is usually the case

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<v Speaker 2>with rural dirt roads, the trees lining both sides of

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<v Speaker 2>the right of way had grown tall and large enough

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<v Speaker 2>to form a kind of green tunnel, which I found

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<v Speaker 2>beautiful and soothing. Some of the older trees where the

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<v Speaker 2>top of the hills seemed to have grown as mirrors

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<v Speaker 2>of one another, their upper branches entwined. Perhaps they are

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<v Speaker 2>ideal lovers, growing side by side and together completing one another,

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<v Speaker 2>I reached the cemetery and found the second gate open.

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<v Speaker 2>So I entered and found my caller's family plot. It

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<v Speaker 2>is large and inspires confidence that her relatives will find

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<v Speaker 2>room there long after I am gone. When I was

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<v Speaker 2>a child, my family lived at fifty seven Columbia Street

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<v Speaker 2>in Mohawk, New York. House my parents owned. It was

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<v Speaker 2>across from the Mohawk Cemetery. My mother occasionally noted that,

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<v Speaker 2>whatever one might say about a cemetery, its occupants were

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<v Speaker 2>quiet neighbors. I often walked through it. I found the

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<v Speaker 2>markers a kind of history book, nearly all bearing the

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<v Speaker 2>names of ordinary people whose lives were quietly lived in

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<v Speaker 2>a small town away from the shouting and tumult of

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<v Speaker 2>the great world. The Mohawk Cemetery had only one distinguished occupant,

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<v Speaker 2>France's Elias Spinner, who had been Herkmer County sheriff, a

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<v Speaker 2>militia general, a three term US representative, once Democrat twice

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<v Speaker 2>a Republican, and Treasurer of the United States under Presidents Lincoln,

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<v Speaker 2>Johnson and Grant. He was also the first federal executive

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<v Speaker 2>to hire women for clerical work on the same basis

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<v Speaker 2>as men. He was renowned for his flamboyantly elaborate signature,

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<v Speaker 2>which appeared on millions of United States notes. He had

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<v Speaker 2>developed it consciously to discourage counterfeiting. The signature appears on

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<v Speaker 2>his grave marker in the Mohawk Cemetery. It also appears

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<v Speaker 2>on the plinth of his monument across the Mohawk River

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<v Speaker 2>in Herkimer, New York, which also bears this quotation. The

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<v Speaker 2>fact that I was instrumental in introducing women to employment

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<v Speaker 2>in the offices of the government gives me more real

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<v Speaker 2>satisfaction than all the other deeds of my life. Coming

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<v Speaker 2>back to my summer's day in the North Branch Cemetery,

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<v Speaker 2>I paused for a few moments to look north across

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<v Speaker 2>the valley of the North Branch River toward Campbell Mountain

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<v Speaker 2>in Hillsborough. Then I went down the rows of stones,

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<v Speaker 2>noting several fellows who cantered off with the New Hampshire

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<v Speaker 2>Dragoons during the Civil War, and a quantity who had

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<v Speaker 2>served in World Wars one and two. One fellow had

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<v Speaker 2>served in both when I was a boy. Such men

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<v Speaker 2>and women call themselves retreads. There were also a few

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<v Speaker 2>who had served in Vietnam. There were also a f

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<v Speaker 2>few revolutionaries, mostly identified by the militia company in which

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<v Speaker 2>they had served. Although I know he's buried in North Branch,

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<v Speaker 2>I couldn't find a marker for the long lived George

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<v Speaker 2>Gates born August eighth, seventeen fifty three and died December thirteenth,

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<v Speaker 2>eighteen forty five. He had fought at Bunker Hill on

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<v Speaker 2>June seventeenth, seventeen seventy five, among those commanded don't fire

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<v Speaker 2>until you see the whites of their eyes, and helped

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<v Speaker 2>prove as One British officer wrote that the Americans are

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<v Speaker 2>full as good soldiers as ours. One fellow named Tuttle,

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<v Speaker 2>an old New England family, had a few small stones

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<v Speaker 2>placed atop his marker. It's a touching custom derived from

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<v Speaker 2>the Jews, flowers, fade stones and dewer. Perhaps a secular

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<v Speaker 2>meaning might be found too, As long as one is

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<v Speaker 2>remembered by someone, one never truly dies. So I found

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<v Speaker 2>a suitable pebble in the dirt road I was on

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<v Speaker 2>and placed it among the others on the tunnel marker.

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<v Speaker 2>Two markers were particularly memorable. One read Archie F. Perry

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<v Speaker 2>eighteen eighty six nineteen fifty an honest man. There are

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<v Speaker 2>worse things for which to be remembered. The other was

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<v Speaker 2>a bench for a member of an old Antrim family

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<v Speaker 2>whose relatives I know. It reads Dennis C. Gales Senior,

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<v Speaker 2>nineteen forty three to two thousand and eight. We sit

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<v Speaker 2>here thankfully he was the man. He didn't have to be.

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<v Speaker 2>There were several other benches about North Branch. They reminded

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<v Speaker 2>me of the nineteenth century custom of picnicking in cemeteries,

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<v Speaker 2>bringing the baskets to the family plots. Before Sir Alexander

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<v Speaker 2>Fleming identified penicillin, death was a constant visitor for many families.

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<v Speaker 2>Perhaps this custom allowed people to share good times with

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<v Speaker 2>their deceased relatives. It waned by the twenties as early

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<v Speaker 2>deaths became less common. The peenchas also reminded me of

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<v Speaker 2>Conrad Aiken, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet and man of

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<v Speaker 2>letters who retired to Savannah, where he had been born.

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<v Speaker 2>He often sat by his parents grave in Bonaventure's cemetery,

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<v Speaker 2>at least in part for the view of the harbor

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<v Speaker 2>and of the arriving and departing merchantmen. He once saw

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<v Speaker 2>a ship with an intriguing name heading down to the sea.

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<v Speaker 2>He did some research at the port authority where he

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<v Speaker 2>confirmed the ship's name and looked up her destination. That

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<v Speaker 2>information gave him a two line poem, Aiken's tombstone is

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<v Speaker 2>a bench. He wanted people to sit and enjoy a

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<v Speaker 2>Martini by his grave on it is the poem which

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<v Speaker 2>is his epitaph Cosmos Mariner destination unknown.

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<v Speaker 1>And great job as always to Robbie Davis for his

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<v Speaker 1>work you're at our American Stories. And a special thanks

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<v Speaker 1>to Bill Brike for this piece. He's one of our

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<v Speaker 1>regular contributors and just a great voice. And my goodness,

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<v Speaker 1>I keep thinking of Archie F. Perry eighteen eighty six

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<v Speaker 1>to nineteen fifty and all it says on his grave

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<v Speaker 1>marker are three words an honest man. It doesn't get

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<v Speaker 1>better than that. And by the way, we'd love to

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<v Speaker 1>hear your final thought stories, stories about death, stories from

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<v Speaker 1>people who are in their final days. There are not

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<v Speaker 1>more interesting stories than that, or it could even just

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<v Speaker 1>be a eulogy. My goodness, the eulogies we heard from

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<v Speaker 1>the Kobe Bryant memorial, from the memorial of Arnold Palmer,

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<v Speaker 1>which is it's some of the best material we've ever

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<v Speaker 1>put on the air. The storytelling is so beautiful again.

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<v Speaker 1>Send all of your stories and suggestions to our American

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<v Speaker 1>stories dot com. Bill brike are of his storytelling from

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<v Speaker 1>the little part of America called Antrim, New Hampshire. Here

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<v Speaker 1>on our American Story