Peanut Butter and Jelly. Batman and Robin. Bacon and Eggs. Those are pairings that just make sense.

But airplanes and tombstones don’t. Not usually.

Hartsfield-Jackson Airport is what most people think of when you mention Atlanta (hopefully it’s not those trashy TV housewives). Just about everybody can say they’ve been through Atlanta because of it, even if they never left the building. They don’t call it the World’s Busiest Airport for nothing.

Amid great hoopla in 2001, construction of a new fifth runway began. The final cost was around $1.28 billion dollars. Completed in 2006, it involved enough fill dirt (in some places) to reach 11 storeys high. That fill dirt has its own whiff of scandal attached to it, but I digress.

By putting in that runway, what little was left of the Flat Rock community that sat on that property was erased. Fortunately, two cemeteries with deep roots in that area were kept intact. While they both look drastically different, not a single grave was disturbed.

Hart Cemetery was established in 1860 with the burial of Ellender “Nellie” Brown Hart (1822-1860). According to long-time community member Melba Daily, the story of the cemetery’s founding goes like this (from a 2008 Clayton Daily News article):

“My great-grandfather and great-grandmother (John Jay Hart and Ellender Brown-Hart) were walking on their property one Sunday and when they got to that spot, she said, ‘This is where I want to be buried some day,’ and she became the first person buried there.”

“It’s very hard to go there and picture where buildings were, because there’s all those embankments they built for the runways,” said Tommy Jones. His grandmother, Jewel Hart, lived in the Flat Rock community. An embankment for a taxiway is now located on the spot where his grandmother’s house stood. “It’s very interesting how Hartsfield grew and eventually overran the community.”

He’s being kinder than I would be if someone bulldozed my grandmother’s house to put in a runway.

My mother worked for the Delta Employees Credit Union for 15 years. I frequently drove to the airport from Fayetteville and passed through this area, although I had never visited the cemeteries. So when I was recently over that way, I decided it was time to do so.

A sign on Riverdale Road directs you down the short road to the bottom of a deep embankment. The front of the cemetery is bordered by a white picket fence and landscaped with bushes. A sign details the history of the cemetery and lists every person thought to be buried there.

When the archeological study was done on Hart Cemetery in 1995, they discovered 83 graves were buried there. Only 16 had any kind of inscribed marker. A number of them are marked with simple field stones. Two giant magnolias stand watch over them.

It feels somewhat desolate there. The incessant spring and summer rains have left the ground muddy and rough. An island of land suspended in time among rising green mounds, with the whine of jumbo jets flying overhead, it is a surreal atmosphere. One that left me feeling empathy for those with loved ones there. Yes, it was kept intact. But it will never be the same.

Flat Rock Cemetery is located deeper within the labyrinth of airport roads (see map above). The cemetery sits amid the cacophony of rumbling cement trucks, speeding tractor trailers and various aircraft overhead. With over 300 graves (most with markers), Flat Rock Cemetery feels more natural than Hart Cemetery, if that’s possible. It’s a grassy plot of land that is tended fairly well. Someone was mowing the grass on the far side of the property during my visit.

History has it that John Hart (mentioned previously) and his second wife, Elizabeth, helped establish Flat Rock Baptist Church in the 1870s. Although Flat Rock was never a Primitive Baptist congregation, they met in a plain building in the tradition of the Primitive Baptists, devoid of ornament or religious pretension. It was built with two entrances, each approached by three wooden steps with no landing. It’s not known if they were ever used to divide the sexes.

As the Atlanta airport expanded and I-285 was built in the 1960s, much of the old Flat Rock community was destroyed. By the 1970s, the congregation was looking to relocate. They sold the property to the airport authority in 1979 and re-established themselves as National Heights Baptist Church. The church and Sunday School building were still used by various airport agencies before being abandoned, then finally torn down in 1996.

The cemetery is still active. I was able to take a photo for Find a Grave that was for a burial in 2012. There’s a good bit of space available. Several descendants of the Hart family (and others with kin who grew up there) still live close to the Flat Rock area. I’m willing to bet some of them will be buried there when the time comes.

It’s comforting to know that these two cemeteries remain intact. Other cemeteries have met much sadder fates. In 1956, Monument Cemetery in Philadelphia was pretty much wiped out, most of the graves destroyed. Why? To add a new parking lot to Temple University. It’s a heartbreaking story.

At the same time, it’s a situation that leaves me torn. I only know that I’m glad my loved ones aren’t buried directly beneath some airplane’s flight path, silent witnesses to hundreds of unknowing travelers.

Melba Dailey put it this way, “”I just can’t bear to look at the area now. It doesn’t look the same at all. When we drive to the cemetery, I just close my eyes until we get there.”

I think I’d feel exactly the same way.

When I talk about cemetery hopping, I am often asked this question:

Why do you do this?

This week’s post should answer that question for both you and me.

A few months ago, I visited Old Fellowship Cemetery here in Tucker. Oddly enough, it is located at the end of a residential street behind a wooden fence with the name on a simple sign. Four of the graves are of Revolutionary War veterans who ended up making Georgia their home. The stacked stone graves are fascinating. I’ve never seen anything quite like them before.

Located nearby is Fellowship Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery, established some time after Old Fellowship Cemetery was. Nobody I’ve asked locally knows why there are two cemeteries, it happened so long ago.

Fellowship Primitive Baptist Church was established in 1829. The original church building burned sometime after 1910. Most of the cemetery records were destroyed in the blaze but the remnants are said to be maintained at the Mercer University Library in Macon, Ga. I haven’t gotten there yet to see if that’s true, but I hope to eventually.

I’ve read that at most Primitive Baptist churches, the sexes sat on opposite sides of the church. I don’t know if this was the practice at this church. They did have separate entrances for men and women, according to a photo (see above). Despite how it sounds, this was not supposed to be a form of discrimination but a way of showing that marriage between men and women was not the major factor to God. While in the church, men and women were supposed to forget earthly ties and concentrate on their worship. Not each other.

While there’s nothing left of the church today, the cemetery is still there. It’s situated between two churches, the First Presbyterian Church of Tucker on the right and the Iglesia Evangelical Apostle Proseta on the left. From what I can tell, the cemetery is fairly well taken care of and is mowed often.

Having passed it many times, I decided to take a look around one day while my son was attending Vacation Bible School nearby. I realized that many of the graves had not been documented, much less photographed. I spent the next few mornings (before it got too hot) taking pictures and poking around. During my work, I managed to get bitten by ants for the first time. Thankfully, I had on sneakers and socks so it wasn’t too horrible. I think I eventually created over 100 new memorial pages with photos.

Several weeks later, I noticed there was a photo request on Find a Grave for the grave of Carrie Turner at this cemetery. The name did not sound familiar but I had definitely created a memorial page for her. As I looked back in my files, I realized I had forgotten to post the picture, so I quickly did. That, I thought, would be the end of it.

It wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

Shortly after I posted the photo of Carrie’s grave and e-mailed an apology to Janet (the requester), she posted this on my Find a Grave message page:

Thank you so much, my hands are actually shaking writing this, I just know this is my grandmother Carrie. I have spoken to my siblings and we are now planning to make another fact finding trip to Georgia with this new information.

Currently living in New Jersey, Janet was a Find a Grave volunteer in the past. Periodically, she would check the website to see if someone might have found her grandmother’s grave. Unwittingly, that someone was me!

As I continued to correspond with Janet, she told me more about her family. She has given me permission to share their story here.

Francis and Carrie Turner lived in rural Tucker in 1910. Records indicate that Francis was born in Lumpkin County, Ga., although his parents were from South Carolina. Carrie grew up in Coweta County, Ga. There was a 25 year age difference between the two, but their union did produce four children. They had a set of male twins, a daughter and another son. Janet’s father was their youngest child.

Unfortunately, Carrie died of pneumonia in 1917 at the age of 40. Francis, then 65, was left with a daunting decision to make. He was poor and his own health was not very good. How was he going to take care of four young children, all of them under the age of 10? It’s a heart-breaking situation few of us would envy.

Ultimately, Francis took his children to the Baptist Children’s Home, then located in Hapeville. He entrusted his children to the care of the orphanage, where they grew up and started lives of their own. Out of the four Turner siblings, only Janet’s father and mother had children.

Janet and her siblings visited Georgia four years ago, hoping to find out more. They visited the Georgia Baptist Children’s Home, now in Palmetto, and found papers that proved the orphanage story was indeed true. She wrote:

[We] are presently in the process of finding out what we have to do legally to unite the twin brothers in one grave, they are in different cemeteries, since neither of them had children and are buried alone.  Every piece of the puzzle is so important and it is my life dream to find my grandmother’s family and my grandfather’s family to perhaps, with the grace of God, find a photo of them, and to reach out to what I believe could be a large family.

Janet and her family are now looking for a professional genealogist in Georgia to do the legwork in finding out more about her grandparents. I hope to be of use to them in some small way, if only to track down some documents locally. Hopefully, they will learn more about Carrie and the other Turners. I’m looking forward to meeting Janet and her siblings in person when they come to Georgia.

Sometimes I do question why I enjoy spending my time poking around in old graveyards. Taking photos while sidestepping ant hills and sweating under a hot Georgia sun (during the rare times it wasn’t raining this summer). I admit that when I was photographing this cemetery, it did cross my mind. Why on earth do I do this?

The answer is that I do it for people like Janet who are seeking answers to their family’s past. I am elated that by simply taking a picture, I helped her find her grandmother. I want to keep doing this. I love doing this!

I think that reason’s good enough for me.

I love to travel. Unfortunately, I’ve only been out of the country a few times. Now that I’m a hopper, it excites me to think of all the interesting cemeteries, I mean, places I’d like to visit.

My friend Todd Guenzi also has the travel bug, but he actually goes to the places that I dream of visiting. He’s a great photographer, too, so I get to enjoy seeing pictures of his adventures. One place he visits often is Puerto Rico, an island paradise I have on my “must go” list.

On one of his visits a few months ago, he had the chance to wander around a cemetery called Cementerio Isla Verde that’s practically on the beach. Pretty rare, indeed. When he sent me the pictures, I knew I was going to feature them here eventually.

This week, I’m simply going to post these pictures, paraphrasing Todd’s insights. I could not find much information on this cemetery and what I did see was in Spanish (definitely not my primary language). So my usual lengthy research didn’t result in anything worth sharing.

Here’s what Todd had to say:

“I was staying in a region of San Juan called Carolina, just east of San Juan. My hotel was on the beach and just about a half a mile up the beach to the west, you could see this cemetery from the beach (fenced from beach to cemetery). There was no access from beach to cemetery, but when I took the avenue walk on the other side, there was an entrance from the main road. So I was able to gain access that way.

Amazing to me that they took valuable beach front property to place a cemetery, but I suppose that is “modern” thinking. When this cemetery was developed, life was different, and there may have been more reverence for this entity. Long before the resorts and hotels were built.”

These photos leave more questions than answers but they offer a unique glimpse into a cemetery nestled in paradise. I would love to know the story behind this neglected place. I appreciate that Todd could share it with me so I could share it with you.

Is there a difference between a casket and a coffin?

This kind of question probably doesn’t keep you up at night. At the same time, funeral terminology can get confusing if you’re not familiar with it. That’s why this post will be the first installment in an occasional series called Death 101.

Coffin versus casket?

Today, the terms coffin and casket are used interchangeably. In the past, the term for the container people were buried in was called a coffin. Casket is now more commonly used. However, there are differences between the two.

The most obvious distinction is the shape. Coffins have either six or eight sides, either hexagonal or octagonal. Remember those old black and white horror films featuring vampires, zombies and other creatures of the night? Those are coffins being depicted.

Coffins are shaped that way to conform to the shape of the human body: narrow around the head, broad on the shoulders area and much narrower down to the feet. By contrast, caskets are rectangular and are what most people are familiar with. That’s what funeral homes sell now. I wonder if the increasing girth of the average American is one reason for the more (ahem) generous shape.

So why the change?

The term casket was initially used as a euphemism for a coffin when funeral parlors started replacing mortuaries. Coffin seemed offensive with the sense of finality that comes with it. But is casket that much better, you might ask? Years ago, yes.

The original meaning of casket was a box for keeping precious belongings like jewelry. Using “casket” to mean “coffin” was meant to diminish the negative connotation that comes with the burial container. Even the death care industry is aware of the value of good marketing.

This explains something I’d always wondered about in Charlotte Bronte’s novel, Jane Eyre. In it, governess Jane becomes engaged to her mysterious employer, Rochester. At the altar, she learns of a tiny complication that’s been living in Thornfield’s attic: Rochester’s insane wife, Bertha. Not eager to become a sister wife, Jane flees. Months later, she returns to find Thornfield burned to the ground, Bertha dead, and Rochester maimed and half-blind. He talks about when he realized she had left him:

After examining your apartment, [I] ascertained that you had taken no money, nor anything which could serve as an equivalent! A pearl necklace I had given you lay untouched in its little casket; your trunks were left corded and locked as they had been prepared for the bridal tour.

Another difference between the two is in materials. Coffins are usually very simple, made of wood, and often do not have handles or interiors. Even back when people were only beginning to adapt the practice of burying the dead in vessels, a cross right above the deceased’s head is the only adornment a coffin would have.

Coffins were almost always handcrafted by one person, often the local carpenter. It was he who would “undertake” the task of taking care of the final disposition of the deceased. That’s where the term “undertaker” comes from.

Caskets are typically made of softwood or hardwood, or 16, 18, or 20 gauge metal. In fact, most caskets purchased today are metal. They are often intricately designed and have engravings, imagery, gold or silver details, handles, and much more. Furthermore, caskets tend to have interiors made of silk, velvet, or other high-quality fabrics. They can also be incredibly expensive.

In America, caskets are made by a handful of large manufacturers. Two of them are Batesville and Aurora (both based in Indiana). The shells are often built on an assembly line, with the additional hardware and decorative elements added later. This is quite different from one carpenter building a simple wooden coffin by hand.

You can actually buy your own casket at places like Costco or BJ’s. They will ship it directly to the funeral home of your choice. This can save a good deal of money since the casket you might purchase from a funeral home is going to carry a markup in price. However, I did note that of the 37 states in which Costco sells and will deliver caskets to, Georgia is not one of them.

Casket manufacturers are feeling the pinch these days as the demand for cremation continues to rise. As a result, companies like Batesville are coming up with more options in the way of decorative containers and urns in which to place ashes.

At the same time, the need for caskets is never going to completely go away. There are too many religious issues attached to cremation for that to ever happen. But that’s a topic that deserves its own blog post another time.

As for me, I’m partial to the idea of a simple wooden coffin, not a casket. It brings to mind the lyrics from a song by Doug Stone:

I’d be better off in a pine box,
On a slow train back to Georgia,
Or in the grey walls of a prison doing time.

Then again, maybe not.