Memorial Days and Dark Sayings From of Old

This weekend we visited cemeteries. Family members spanning three generations took to the curvaceous blacktops along the Missouri-Arkansas line.

Blue Eye Cemetery holds the graves of my father, my maternal grandparents and numerous ancestors on my mother’s side. A pair of great-great-great grandfathers fought in the Civil War, one for the Union and one for the Confederacy. In fact, one switched sides half-way through. Family members abandoned homes and farms as they fled marauding bands of bushwhackers. Chaos ruled the Ozarks in those dark days.

At McCullough Cemetery I visited a later generation of ancestors who relocated into the neighboring highlands following a feud. Great-great uncle Bud shot and killed three men—related to him by marriage—in a dispute over a rail fence. Apparently, they had it coming, and obviously, Bud was good with a rifle. Fearing reprisals, entire families left established farms and homes to start over on rocky glades no one else wanted. Prosperity lagged.

Along with hard times and occasional violence, family members started churches and businesses and families, raising kids and cattle and hogs and chickens and goats. My great-grandfather Martin, present at the feud, opened a general store on Indian Creek. My daughter and I watched for snakes as we tip-toed through the crumbling foundation, today on the bank of the Indian Creek arm of Table Rock Lake. Land buried under impounded waters once held gardens and baseball fields and picnics. I grew up water-skiing over ghosts.

The visits reminded me that life brings challenges and tragedy and decisions and nuance and wonder and change. Always change. But in the midst the Lord remains constant—and in Him lies our hope.

I will utter dark sayings from of old, things we have heard and known…we will not hide them from our children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord…that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, and that they should set their hope in God.

I enjoyed the stories from my mom and aunt, and especially my cousin Connie, the family historian. I appreciated the younger generation who listened attentively. Memorial days such as these help us pass on our hope found in God, the only lasting source of hope throughout the generations.

Psalm 78 in week twenty-two of reading the Bible cover to cover