“The old cemetery,” as Ms. Medwin
called it, lies near the center of town and is the place where the original
settlers of Franconia, Ohio, buried their dead for a few generations. Later, as
churches began to form in the community, each created its own cemetery, at
first right alongside the church building but then, later, as space became a
problem, out on the edge of town in what once had been farmland.
And when that happened, the old
cemetery fell into disuse, and it wasn’t until the Franconia Historical Society
formed years ago that anyone really paid much attention to it. Oh, the town of
Franconia cut the grass, that sort of thing—can’t have something messy and ugly
right near the center of town, you know. The Historical Society built a
wrought-iron fence around the property and began maintaining the gravesites
more carefully. Some of the stones had fallen. Vandals had broken up others.
And some had become almost impossible to read because they’d been made of
sandstone, which always loses long battles with the weather. The Society also
installed an arched wrought-iron gateway to the property, with a sign atop: Franconia Settlers Cemetery. I guess it
was too hard to put an apostrophe after the s.
Father pointed it out to me even before I knew what an apostrophe is. All the kids just called it
“Settlers.”
Our class was excited to go over to
Settlers in the middle of a school day—on what the school called a “walking
field trip.” Not as much fun as getting on a bus and going somewhere
distant—somewhere so far away that it meant a stop on the way home at a
fast-food place. Now that, in a
seventh grader’s eyes, is a good field trip! Of course, the school was being
very careful about field trips now after the one last year to Middle Island in
the Ohio River—that trip that featured some horrors that many were still trying
to forget.[i]
Still … a “walking field trip” was
infinitely better than no field trip.
So we were excited, as I’ve said. That morning of 7 November it was dark and
foggy—appropriate for a cemetery trip—but not too cold (near 50), though we had
to wear wet weather jackets. A little rain in the forecast.[ii]
Ms. Medwin had not told us much
about what we were going to do—but we had to bring a notebook and something to
write with. So as soon as our earlier classes were over, we hurried to our
lockers, got out jackets, put everything away except what she’d told us we’d
need, then hurried to the classroom. She took attendance—and off we went.
As I said, Settlers wasn’t too far
from the school, and we were all in a pretty excited mood, mostly because we
didn’t have to be in class for a while. I felt someone beside me. Looked. Gil.
“What do you think we’re going to
do?” he asked.
“Oh, probably just, you know, get
in the mood to write something like those Spoon
River pieces.”
“I guess,” he said.
I noticed he was having to work a
little bit to keep up with me. I slowed—then teased him a little. “I should
have brought a wagon to pull you in.”
“A little red one,” he said. “And I
could’ve dressed up like a fireman.”
I laughed. He took teasing a lot
better than I did.
“Thanks for slowing up a little,”
he said. “I’m just a little tired. Didn’t sleep too well.”
“Dreams about Ms. Medwin?” I
teased.
“It’s so creepy,” he said, “that
you can read my dreams.”
It wasn’t too long before we
arrived, and Ms. Medwin had us assemble by the arched entryway. “Now,” she
said, “after we’d sort of quieted down, “here’s what we’re going to do. I want
you to spread out around the cemetery and find a grave that interests you in
some way.”
Some boy said, “Can we dig it up?”
Lots of cries of “Gross!” and
“Sick!”
Ms. Medwin looked at him sharply,
then softened. “Only if you want extra credit,” she said. And we all laughed.
“So, when you find a grave that
interests you,” she said, “I want you to write some things in your notebook
about the gravestone—what it looks like, its size, what it says on it. Then,” she went on, “I want you to imagine who that
person was. Thinking about the
person’s emotions. What did that
person love? Or hate? What did he or she achieve? Or fail to achieve? What were
the good things in that person’s life? The bad things?”
A raised hand. Ms. Medwin said,
“Yes?”
“But we don’t know who the person
really was.”
“It doesn’t matter for this
assignment,” she said. “Just use your imagination. Create something that makes sense to you.” A pause. “Any more
questions?”
There weren’t. So off we went in search of graves.
No comments:
Post a Comment