Can we talk?

Lost On A Short Journey

         Yesterday I took my dad to his great great grandfather's grave. It is marked my a huge monument right at the old front door of a country church in the next county. There's one other grave, of shinier stone of similar size and style for some other pastor 50 years later, and a small marker for his wife. They are the only graves next to the church. There is a small cemetery of about 20 graves at the far side of the church property. I looked for other possible graves of Grandpa, but they were all relatives of the second pastor and one other family. Apparently, that church got out of the cemetery business over half a century ago.

         I had been there before because I've researched the family tree, but he had not stopped to look at it before. We took a lot of pictures, one of each side of the obelisk (taller than my dad) to get the engraving close up. My ancestor had been a farmer who preached for whatever church needed him. At one time he preached at a different church each Sunday of the month. Farmers couldn't take time off from work to go every Sunday. He had to go by horseback 80 miles each way to one church. His wife hated that he was so devoted to his church work and seldom received the promised pay, even if it was only one load of firewood each year.

         What makes the church unique is that it was started in the 1700's; the building was erected in 1824 while Grandpa was preaching 2 Sundays a month there. It stands out in that it is the only church of antiquity in the county that has been and still is in continuous use, and one of the few in the state. The architect was a friend of Thomas Jefferson and helped with details at UVA. Certainly Grandpa would have met with the architect. Maybe even a poor farmer/preacher like him had an occasion to meet Jefferson when he was a boy in that area.

         Anyway, we left there to see a piece of property for sale, as it turns out, only six miles away. We didn't know it was that close. I turned the wrong direction out of the church parking lot, then asked Siri to give me directions. The GPS sent me about 19 miles in a loop into yet another county on the other side of the James River and down a road under construction. I ended up going down lots of small country roads until I finally got to a major highway which took us to familiar territory.

         I've discovered my dad has forgotten his way around all these country roads that he doesn't travel any more. So we spent the afternoon cooped up in my car, which is hard on his back. We found our way to yet one more stop, the grave of the daughter-in-law of the minister. My dad's great grandmother was a civil war widow, and had remarried. He never knew this, so I wanted him to see the headstone for himself. From there we were only 10 miles from home, but it was down the side of a mountain on a windy road at rush hour. A lot of people live on that mountain.

         I've got to get outside the city limits more, and off my hill which is outside the city limits but so close to the down town.