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Archiver > LOCKE > 1999-11 > 0941600717


From: Janie and Annie <>
Subject: Re: [LOCKE-L] [11/1/1999] Monument
Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1999 19:45:17 -0800


Checking the Obits., I put Locke in and found the Obit of John Sidney Locke
b.05/01/14. This had quite a bit of info in it for the Southern branch of The Lockes.
Hopefully someone can put it to good use. Annie Lake

wrote:

> George Locke () sent
> you the following article from the News & Observer
> on the Web (http://www.news-observer.com).
>
> This article is protected by copyright and should
> not be printed or distributed for anything except
> personal use.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Comments from :
>
> Here is a story from this morning's paper that is probably familiar to a lot of us.
>
> -Geo
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> [11/1/1999] Monument
> By CHRISTINA NIFONG, STAFF WRITER
> http://www.news-observer.com/daily/1999/11/01/day00.html
>
> DURHAM -- Down a dead-end gravel road, wedged between a bank of windowless
> warehouses and railroad tracks, lies a cemetery that hardly anyone
> knows about.
>
> Cloaked in vines and littered with branches, this patch of weedy soil
> once told a central story of Durham: workers so dependent they looked
> to their employers for their final resting places -- and leaders civic
> minded enough to provide them.
>
> But times changed, people moved on. Erwin Cotton Mills closed. And
> a new freeway severed the graveyard from its community.
>
> In the end, more people rested beneath the squares of granite than
> were left to remember the lives the stones stood for.
>
> Then came William Yarbrough, all the way from Tidewater Virginia, 62
> years after his grandfather had left Durham -- and this world -- behind.
> Here to receive him was John Schelp, history buff and president of
> the Old West Durham Neighborhood Association.
>
> In a matter of weeks, these strangers battled incomplete records, fading
> memories and rain to rediscover the forgotten Erwin Cotton Mills Cemetery,
> also known as Cedar Hill Cemetery.
>
> Now, thanks to Yarbrough's search for his roots and Schelp's curiosity,
> the century-old grave site is garnering more attention than it likely
> ever has and is scheduled for a large-scale clean-up in the spring.
> "This neighborhood has such a rich history," Schelp says about West
> Durham. "It's out there, you just have to pull it all together."The
> missing cemetery
>
> The hunt for Erwin Cotton Mills Cemetery began in May, when Yarbrough,
> 62, was sifting through his mother's things after her death. He came
> across two tattered newspaper obituaries of the same man: Edward Yarborough,
> who died in his sleep at age 76.
>
> Yarbrough realized that all he knew of his father's family was there,
> on that wrinkled newsprint. His father had died when Yarbrough was
> 21, so Yarbrough never had the chance to set down a family tree.
>
> What he did have -- the two stories -- didn't measure 6 inches. Neither
> included the year of Edward Yarborough's death. (The first "o" of "Yarborough"
> was dropped somewhere between the generations.)
>
> Staring at the yellowing pieces of newspaper, Yarbrough felt acutely
> adrift in the world.
>
> "I'm curious to see how far I can go back," he said over the phone
> last week. "I would just like to know."
>
> Yarbrough decided he would try to find his family. He had the time
> (poor health had forced him into early retirement) and the tools (he
> was newly proficient on the Web). So he started sleuthing.
>
> "Burial will be in the Erwin Cotton Mills Cemetery in West Durham,"
> he read from one of the obits. And when Yarbrough came across the Web
> site for the Old West Durham Neighborhood Association, he tapped out
> a message: "Could you tell me if the old Erwin Cotton Mills Cemetery
> is still in existence and maintained?"
>
> The query landed in Schelp's e-mail in-box in early September. "Usually
> I have some sense of what people are asking for," Schelp says of the
> messages he receives as president of the neighborhood association.
> "This time I had no idea what he was talking about."
>
> Had the owners of Erwin Mills -- one of the key industries in early
> Durham -- actually provided burial plots for their workers? If so,
> where was the cemetery?
>
> Schelp began tracking his own leads. First, e-mailing former members
> of the neighborhood, then seeking out West Durham old-timers.
>
> Eventually, he found Bill Holmes, an 80-year-old West Durham resident
> and a member of the Knights of Pythias, a Masonic-like order that had
> taken charge of the cemetery more than 20 years ago, when Burlington
> Industries bought out Erwin Mills. These days, members are too elderly
> and too few to care for it.
>
> Yes, Holmes told Schelp, along with rose bushes for the yard and candy
> at Christmas, William Erwin had provided a plot for employees and their
> families who had no other place to be buried.
>
> The missing grandfather
>
> Schelp flashed a quick e-mail to Yarbrough. And within a week, Yarbrough
> and his wife were sitting at Blue Corn Cafe on Ninth Street, staring
> through a plate-glass window at the only building of the old Erwin
> Mills complex that still stands. Today it is filled not with cotton,
> but condos.
>
> For the next two hours, the Yarbroughs took in a taste of what life
> may have been like for Edward Yarborough.
>
> They wandered through the rows of turn-of-the-century mill houses,
> peered at a new church built upon the site of the one where Edward's
> funeral was held and, finally, drove down the rutted road to seek his
> headstone.
>
> Despite a steady drizzle, the threesome moved systematically across
> the half-acre cemetery of some 200 graves, searching each stone for
> the familiar letters and dates: Edward H. Yarborough, born, 1861, died,
> Nov. 18, in what must have been 1937.
>
> In the end, they left disappointed. Edward, it seemed, wasn't there.
> He wasn't in the Durham County library database of the cemetery, either.
> But Yarbrough held out hope that his grandfather's grave might still
> be found, somewhere in the tangle of sweet gum saplings, below a pile
> of pine straw. Perhaps in a place the documenters might have missed:
> under the paved road or on the other side, down close to the railroad
> tracks.
>
> So he made a pledge: To come back with his grown children and his chain
> saw and restore the cemetery.
>
> "I think everybody should respect their ancestors," he says. "And I
> want to do what I can to keep the area clean."
>
> Schelp offered to organize volunteers from the neighborhood and Duke
> University for a clean-up, which he has scheduled for March 4.
>
> And so one man's search has led to a community's rediscovery.
>
> Doris Tilley, who has documented Durham's cemeteries for more than
> two decades, says it's not unusual for private cemeteries to fall into
> neglect. So Yarbrough's quest benefits everyone.
>
> "Great for him," says Tilley"That's what it takes. Somebody looking
> for an ancestor is what so often leads to a cleanup."
>
> Christina Nifong can be reached at 956-2464 or
> more information
>
> To find out more about the Erwin Cotton Mills Cemetery, check out the
> Old West Durham Neighborhood Association Web site at http://members.xoom.com/owdna
> or search the Cedar Hill listing in the Durham County Library cemetery
> database. If you're interested in participating in the March 4 cemetery
> cleanup, call John Schelp at 541-5723.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> This article is protected by copyright and should
> not be printed or distributed for anything except
> personal use.
>
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