The cemetery where my friends GGGrands are buried is also the same one my GGGrands who were in the Alabama and the Florida units rest. After Ivan made a royal mess of the place, we had a big old fashioned clean up day. Bless the young men and women from the US Navy at Corry Station. They were wonderful and they also showed great respect for the burial places. We had folks in their 80's to little kids carrying sticks to a pile. Chainsaws and garden trowels. Didn't matter. Everyone did something.
My friend and I had worked on our own family plots before but that day I just really noticed there were a lot of markers that had CSA on them. A bunch of them. I began writing down the names and dates and came home and started to do some look ups. A couple did say 15th Alabama and I knew mine were 32nd and 53rd Alabama and 8th Florida. It seemed there were quite a lot of 15th Alabama people there. From what I've learned from their family members that I have spoken to, they all pretty much wandered together here to farm and work the sawmills after the war. Now Friend and I are seeing History here and that got all of us to thinking. Long story short--the church that began as a Baptist Church where my Mama was baptized in the creek across the street had changed hands and religions pretty often. The church at the time Ivan hit decided to deed over the cemetery to a preservation committee. My cousin is the Prez. of that committee and they are in the process of jumping through the legal hoops to get it certified as a "Historic" site because it meets a lot of the requirements. It's already got the tax exempt status. Anyhow, we feel that would be the best route to follow. I forget offhand but I think it was about 20 Confederate veterans buried there. Maybe a few more that we didn't identify. We are doing what we can to preserve those resting places and the markers that are there. It may not be much, but we are trying our best to preserve our heritage as best we can. We can only hope there's keepers who show up for duty when we're gone. I believe I gave that list on the 15th Alabama burials to Mr Greene who was doing a book on that unit.
My favorite graves there though are not CW ancestors. My GreatUncle passed away before his wife did. His marker says, "Here lies Morgan waiting for Violet". Years later after she passed, her marker says "I'm here Morgan, What do you want?". That's the way they were. Funny and loving. We've been blessed to have that type of gene in us.
Pam