Hi All,
My brother made a trip back to the old Thomas B. Caudill homeplace
yesterday. The old log part of the house is still standing. He (my brother)
spent a large part of his childhood there. He called me to reminiscence a
bit about the "old days" and was telling about riding all over Wilkes,
Surry and Alleghany Co. with Ezekiel Caudill, (son of Thomas B. and Martha
Joines, Caudill, we children just called him "Uncle," )with a horse and wagon.
He also visited the old Caudill/Joines cemetary and took some photographs.
Some of the older stones are getting a bit hard to read but for the most
part the cemetary looks pretty well cared for.A couple of tilted and broken
stones, which he plans to go back and see if he can fix, when he can. My
brother helped dig some of the graves in that cemetary and he was telling
me something that I thought was interesting and was wondering if it was the
usual way people were buried in those days or something that might pertain
to a certain culture. he said that they dug the graves for the first 3 feet
10 ft.wide, movrd in 6 in. all around for the next 3 feet, leaving a 6 in
shelf all around half-way down. The casket was set on two boards in the
bottom, then 4 ft boards were placed on the ledge over top of the casket to
keep dirt from going directly onto the casket. Then the grave was filled
in. Of course, with time all of the graves sunk, as the boards decayed, and
had to be filled in, again. He said that every year, before revival,
Ezekiel would haul sand with horse and wagon and cover the entire cemetary
with sand until there was not a blade of grass, anywhere. He mounded every
grave, marked or unmarked, with sand and he knew who was buried in each
grave. Of course my brother doesn't remember all the people, as it was
better than 50 years ago and at the time he probably wasn't very
interested, anyway.
The old Double Creek School is now a community center and we were thinking
that it might be nice, if enough people were interested to have a
Caudill/Joines reunion, at some time. To get together and share information
and get to know one another.
Nan