Peninsula In Passage

Farm Family Cemeteries Family cemeteries dot the North Suffolk landscape like notes from the past discovered in unexpected places. Some are a few tilted, worn headstones in a weedy patch while others rest, well tended, behind iron fences. And many more are flat, forgotten stone markers barely visible under encroaching greenery. Once the norm, especially in the South, family cemeteries have become a rarity. With fewer families owning farms or larger properties, burials generally have moved to church graveyards or public cemeteries. When families move from the farm or sell off property to developers, cemeteries can get lost in the transition. Ian W. Brown, an anthropology professor at the University of Alabama, describes family cemeteries as “outdoor museums” that are threatened throughout the South. “People are concerned with them in a general fashion,” he says. “But unless it’s your family, no one’s tending them.” In North Suffolk family cemeteries are found in the middle of housing developments such as Brittany Farms where the Jones family cemetery sits among homes of strangers. The Ames family cemetery, unfenced but intact, is on an open stretch of Knott’s Neck Road. On the corner of Bennett’s Pasture Road and Nansemond Parkway, a small cemetery lies just off the road. Faded silk flowers tucked near the leaf-strewn gravestones indicate that people still visit this African American cemetery that holds the remains of the Smith family. Harrison Smith, who died in 1896, is the oldest cemetery resident with a marked tombstone. He may have been born a slave in 1811 but in the 1870 census he was listed as a farmer in the Sleepy Hole area. Smith’s descendants rest in the 20 or so other graves, including his great grandson, James A. Eason, a World War II Army veteran. The more recent visible graves, one in 2003, indicate the cemetery is still in use. Virginia and John P. Harlow lived in the old farmhouse overlooking the river at the end of Lee Farm Lane. Their friend Hinton Hurff remembers, “Some of my fondest memories were staying there with Jack (Jack Nurney, Virginia’s brother) and Gin. We used to rock on the porch and listen to the wind in the pine trees – that’s why I planted pines at my place.” Also overlooking the river is the Gaskins family cemetery that the Harlows tended carefully for years. The manicured cemetery, surrounded by an ornate iron fence, offers a glimpse into local history chiseled in stone.

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