» explore Cemeteries enshrine the dead, but they are experienced by the living. They are one of the primary places where the past can still pierce into the present, inviting a meditation or evoking an unexpected emotion. The arm of a local sawmill worker from the 19th century, John Keith, is buried in Oak Hill. The rest of his body is buried separately in a nearby grave.
not only their names but where they were from, and other facts about who they were.” “Newnan, like every other town in the confederacy, has her array of martyrs,” Cumming wrote as the war drew to a close. Cumming wrote of a “Mr. S. Martin,” over 60 years old, whose two sons died in the war, while a third lost his arm. “Mr. Thurmond and Mr. Brown have each lost two sons; Major Kendrick, whom I have heard spoken of as being a good citizen and a brave soldier, was killed. It would be useless for me to mention them all, as there is scarcely a family in the whole country but that has to mourn the loss of a loved one.” Hanna said she was moved by passages 48 |
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in Cumming’s journal that related personal tales of the horror of war. “I took this info and went back to the cemetery at Oak Hill to seek out the graves of these men that Katie tended to and mentioned in her journal. I found almost all of them.” Even the scraps of information provided by Cumming transformed Hanna’s experience of Oak Hill. “It changed my feelings and emotions as I walked through that graveyard for what had to have been the tenth time in my life,” she said. Cemeteries enshrine the dead, but they are experienced by the living. They are one of the primary places where the past can still pierce into the present, inviting
a meditation or evoking an unexpected emotion. The invitations can be read there in headstone after headstone, hyphen after hyphen. Grantville, Senoia, Moreland — every community has its cemeteries, and recent trends in the funeral industry have ensured that there will be no lack of room in a local cemetery for you. In the 1960s, less than 5 percent of the population opted for cremation. Now, the industry is on fire, with 42 percent choosing cremation over burial in 2011. According to the Cremation Association of North America, cremations in Georgia increased from 11 percent in 1997 to nearly 40 percent in 2010. The group estimates that by 2025 more than 60 percent will choose to be cremated.