Mrs. Corbett was leading us in her Jeep down a tiny, horribly paved road. Trailers and run-down houses were on either side of the road. Trash,broken-down cars, and who knows what else lined the road’s shoulders--not what you expect to see while on your way to a cemetery. We came to a ninety-degree turn in the road and a run-down shack right in front of us, muddy trails began in two directions off from the road; all in all, not a great impression of what was to come.

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We walked to the back corner, right next to the tree line. Here we found the names of the families we had been told were black. Most of the stones were hand carved. One was of a Colonel Bates; he had a headstone matching those in Arlington Cemetery. One headstone was engraved with “Baby Bates.” For some reason this made it seem more personal, more loved even, than “Infant Daughter of . . .” followed by some weepy quote.

We roamed around the cemetery, noticing the names of families. This cemetery was fairly organized into family areas. It appeared that the Hendersons had the oldest gravestones. Shaped with circles on top, and
rectangles to the ground, the writing faced a different direction than most of the rest of the cemetery.

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This incident was quite thrilling as well as the story Mrs. Sheppard told us just before we left. Apparently, a nice old man who lives up the street and goes to the church, I think he was a Jordan, kind of volunteered to be a makeshift “caretaker” for the cemetery. He mowed and raked and picked up trash. Not too long after he started this, he suddenly stopped. Mrs. Sheppard said she went up and asked him why he had stopped tending the cemetery.

He then proceeded to tell her that one day he went down there with his tools to do his normal routine when he looked up the hill and saw about eight black women in black dresses, like they were dressed to be mourning, walking in a circle around this tree. They were chanting and suddenly began to “float or rise” off the ground. Well, that was enough for him, he turned right around and went back up the road to his house and refused to go tend the cemetery again.

Mrs. Sheppard was a little skeptical of his story, but he assured her they started to “float.” He also said that he didn’t recognize any of them, and since he was an old member of the church, he figured he should be able to recognize people who would be visiting the cemetery. With these things in mind, he was convinced he had seen “ghosts or somethin’.” Mrs. Sheppard asked him if he had seen any cars, because for anybody who didn’t live on the road to the cemetery it was a far way to walk. He assured her that there weren’t any cars, nothing around but those ladies on the hill floating and chanting around that tree.