Barbara Parsons Smith shared the following in an email sent March 25, 2012:
"Mother [Carrie L. Smith] remembers that Grandmother Sarah Ann had grieved greatly the day of her daughter [Rilla]'s death and was sick that next morning, the 18th of December and was not able to attend her daughter's funeral. The neighbors had banded together to build Rilla's coffin and sew her white wool burial dress. Mother's Aunt Tennessee Smith came to Grandpa Bob's and took the children to see her mother in the casket (in their house where she died). Mother vividly recalls her mother lying in state in her white dress trimmed with blue ribbon, Rilla's favorite color.
Back in those days the neighbors did those things for their friends and family, especially given the absence of funeral homes in those rural communities. Dec. 18th was a cold and sleet-filled day when Rilla was buried at the James Cemetery. Mother remembers this of her grandmother, Sarah Ann McCarty Abram's final illness:
'We were at her house, and her brother Uncle George McCarty was with us. The small children did not go to the funeral; it was sleeting. Toby [Mother's older sister Clara] was still sick there with that pneumonia. We went to Grandma Abrams' [home]. She was very sick in that back room and she died in that back room. She died while they were burying my mother. Uncle George McCarty rode on a horse to the cemetery to tell the family that Grandma Abrams had died.'
Which brings me to the point of this letter: the date on Sarah Ann McCarty Abram's gravestone is in error. The marker was placed on the grave in fairly recent years by Sarah Ann and John Benjamin's descendants who did not know to contact my mother (now the oldest surviving member of her family) for the date, a day that my mother remembers well. Unfortunately, the date may not ever be corrected, but I wanted to alert you to the error. The probate record for Rilla Abrams Smith shows her date of death as the 17th of Dec., 1922 Her mother died on the 18th of December, 1922, the day of Rilla's burial."
"Mother [Carrie L. Smith] remembers that Grandmother Sarah Ann had grieved greatly the day of her daughter [Rilla]'s death and was sick that next morning, the 18th of December and was not able to attend her daughter's funeral. The neighbors had banded together to build Rilla's coffin and sew her white wool burial dress. Mother's Aunt Tennessee Smith came to Grandpa Bob's and took the children to see her mother in the casket (in their house where she died). Mother vividly recalls her mother lying in state in her white dress trimmed with blue ribbon, Rilla's favorite color.
Back in those days the neighbors did those things for their friends and family, especially given the absence of funeral homes in those rural communities. Dec. 18th was a cold and sleet-filled day when Rilla was buried at the James Cemetery. Mother remembers this of her grandmother, Sarah Ann McCarty Abram's final illness:
'We were at her house, and her brother Uncle George McCarty was with us. The small children did not go to the funeral; it was sleeting. Toby [Mother's older sister Clara] was still sick there with that pneumonia. We went to Grandma Abrams' [home]. She was very sick in that back room and she died in that back room. She died while they were burying my mother. Uncle George McCarty rode on a horse to the cemetery to tell the family that Grandma Abrams had died.'
Which brings me to the point of this letter: the date on Sarah Ann McCarty Abram's gravestone is in error. The marker was placed on the grave in fairly recent years by Sarah Ann and John Benjamin's descendants who did not know to contact my mother (now the oldest surviving member of her family) for the date, a day that my mother remembers well. Unfortunately, the date may not ever be corrected, but I wanted to alert you to the error. The probate record for Rilla Abrams Smith shows her date of death as the 17th of Dec., 1922 Her mother died on the 18th of December, 1922, the day of Rilla's burial."
Barbara Parsons Smith shared the following in an email sent March 25, 2012:
"Mother [Carrie L. Smith] remembers that Grandmother Sarah Ann had grieved greatly the day of her daughter [Rilla]'s death and was sick that next morning, the 18th of December and was not able to attend her daughter's funeral. The neighbors had banded together to build Rilla's coffin and sew her white wool burial dress. Mother's Aunt Tennessee Smith came to Grandpa Bob's and took the children to see her mother in the casket (in their house where she died). Mother vividly recalls her mother lying in state in her white dress trimmed with blue ribbon, Rilla's favorite color.
Back in those days the neighbors did those things for their friends and family, especially given the absence of funeral homes in those rural communities. Dec. 18th was a cold and sleet-filled day when Rilla was buried at the James Cemetery. Mother remembers this of her grandmother, Sarah Ann McCarty Abram's final illness:
'We were at her house, and her brother Uncle George McCarty was with us. The small children did not go to the funeral; it was sleeting. Toby [Mother's older sister Clara] was still sick there with that pneumonia. We went to Grandma Abrams' [home]. She was very sick in that back room and she died in that back room. She died while they were burying my mother. Uncle George McCarty rode on a horse to the cemetery to tell the family that Grandma Abrams had died.'
Which brings me to the point of this letter: the date on Sarah Ann McCarty Abram's gravestone is in error. The marker was placed on the grave in fairly recent years by Sarah Ann and John Benjamin's descendants who did not know to contact my mother (now the oldest surviving member of her family) for the date, a day that my mother remembers well. Unfortunately, the date may not ever be corrected, but I wanted to alert you to the error. The probate record for Rilla Abrams Smith shows her date of death as the 17th of Dec., 1922 Her mother died on the 18th of December, 1922, the day of Rilla's burial."
"Mother [Carrie L. Smith] remembers that Grandmother Sarah Ann had grieved greatly the day of her daughter [Rilla]'s death and was sick that next morning, the 18th of December and was not able to attend her daughter's funeral. The neighbors had banded together to build Rilla's coffin and sew her white wool burial dress. Mother's Aunt Tennessee Smith came to Grandpa Bob's and took the children to see her mother in the casket (in their house where she died). Mother vividly recalls her mother lying in state in her white dress trimmed with blue ribbon, Rilla's favorite color.
Back in those days the neighbors did those things for their friends and family, especially given the absence of funeral homes in those rural communities. Dec. 18th was a cold and sleet-filled day when Rilla was buried at the James Cemetery. Mother remembers this of her grandmother, Sarah Ann McCarty Abram's final illness:
'We were at her house, and her brother Uncle George McCarty was with us. The small children did not go to the funeral; it was sleeting. Toby [Mother's older sister Clara] was still sick there with that pneumonia. We went to Grandma Abrams' [home]. She was very sick in that back room and she died in that back room. She died while they were burying my mother. Uncle George McCarty rode on a horse to the cemetery to tell the family that Grandma Abrams had died.'
Which brings me to the point of this letter: the date on Sarah Ann McCarty Abram's gravestone is in error. The marker was placed on the grave in fairly recent years by Sarah Ann and John Benjamin's descendants who did not know to contact my mother (now the oldest surviving member of her family) for the date, a day that my mother remembers well. Unfortunately, the date may not ever be corrected, but I wanted to alert you to the error. The probate record for Rilla Abrams Smith shows her date of death as the 17th of Dec., 1922 Her mother died on the 18th of December, 1922, the day of Rilla's burial."
Gravesite Details
d/o Willis McCarty and Sarah "Sally" Keen McCarty
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