Decoration Day in the Mountains: Traditions of Cemetery Decoration in the Southern Appalachians

251 Pages·2010·29.36 MB·English

by  Alan Jabbour

Decoration Day
in the Mounta ins
Decoration Day
in the Mountains
Traditions of Cemetery Decoration
in the Southern Appalachians
Alan Jabbour & Karen Singer Jabbour
The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill
Th is book was published with the assistance of the
Blythe Family Fund of the University of North Carolina Press.
© 2010 The University Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
of North Carolina Press
Jabbour, Alan.
All rights reserved
Decoration day in the mountains : traditions of
cemetery decoration in the southern Appalachians /
Set in Arno Pro
Alan Jabbour and Karen Singer Jabbour.
Manufactured in the
p. cm.
United States of America
Includes bibliographical references and index.
The paper in this book meets ISBN 978-0-8078-3397-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
the guidelines for permanence 1. Mourning customs—Appalachian Region, Southern.
and durability of the Committ ee 2. Cemeteries—Appalachian Region, Southern.
on Production Guidelines for 3. Decoration and ornament—Appalachian Region,
Book Longevity of the Council Southern. 4. Appalachian Region, Southern—
on Library Resources. Social life and customs. I. Jabbour, Karen Singer. II. Title.
GT3390.5.U6J33 2010
The University of North Carolina
393'.90975—dc22 2009046323
Press has been a member of the Green
Press Initiative since 2003. 14 13 12 11 10 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Introduction vii
Acknowledgments xi
About the Photographs xv
1
Two Encounters with Decoration Day 3
2
Decoration Day in Western North Carolina 19
3
Cemetery Features in Western North Carolina 49
4
Historical and Cultural Origins of the Region 86
5
The North Shore: Removal and Revolution 97
6
The Origin, Diff usion, and Range of Decoration Day 116
7
The North Shore and Decoration Day in Sign, Symbol, and Art 131
8
The Unsung Heroes of Decoration Day 145
9
Concluding Thoughts 169
appendix a. Project History 189
Appendix B. Log of Ethnographic Events,
North Shore Cemetery Decoration Project, 2004 193
Notes 195
Bibliography 201
Index 209
A map of western North Carolina cemeteries pictured
in this book appears on page 2.
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction
Decoration Day is a widespread cultural tradition in a swath of the American South ex-
tending from east of the Appalachians to west and southwest of the Ozarks. In the fullest
form of the tradition, people visit a cemetery where family members are buried to provide
an annual or periodic cleaning. Then they decorate the graves with fl owers and other
symbols of aff ection. Finally, they gather as a family or community in a religious service
in the cemetery reaffi rming their connections with each other and with the community
beneath the ground. The service may involve preaching, prayers, hymn singing, and a
ritual meal known as “dinner on the ground.”
Decoration Day — its practitioners oft en call the event simply a “decoration”— is a
powerful ritual of piety. At the practical level, it provides a cultural motivation for clean-
ing and repairing a cemetery, which, if not properly maintained, can be reclaimed by the
forest of the Upland South with astonishing speed. At the social level, it serves as a focal
point for gathering a community, and it has long provided an occasion for community
members from afar to return to their homeplace. At the deepest spiritual level, a decora-
tion is an act of respect for the dead that reaffi rms one’s bonds with those who have gone
before.
One would think that such a widespread folk custom, practiced by or at least known
to hundreds of thousands of Americans, would by now have generated an extensive litera-
ture. But there is no book-length treatment of the tradition, and the articles that discuss
it are mostly localized and limited in their perspective on what is a broadly diff used and
greatly varied regional tradition. Further, the complicated relation of this cultural tradi-
tion to the national Memorial Day, which began in the Northern states aft er the Civil
War, continues to confuse everyone from encyclopedia writers to local practitioners. This
volume looks at the historical origins and geographic sweep of Decoration Day and pres-
ents some surprising connections and comparative details to help explicate its history.
Decorating graves with fl owers is of course an ancient cultural practice, but the particular
practice of Decoration Day that we explore here seems to emerge from the mists of time
during the middle decades of the nineteenth century in the American South.
Though this book deals with the historical origins and geographic spread of Decora-
tion Day, its main focus is on a subregion of the Upland South where the tradition seems to
be particularly strong. That subregion is a multicounty area of Appalachian North Caro-
lina west of Asheville — Swain, Jackson, and Graham Counties and, to a lesser extent, the
counties surrounding them. It is a region where two great mountain ranges converge — the
Balsam Mountains and the Great Smoky Mountains. Here many cemeteries hold decora-
tions, and local people are well aware of the cultural tradition of cemetery decoration.
Here, too, the tradition of cemetery decoration has been at the root of a tug-of-war
between local citizens and the federal government that has lasted for a half century. When
Fontana Dam was built (1941–44), a large number of people were removed from their
homes in the valley of the Litt le Tennessee River and along the creeks fl owing down the
southern fl ank of the Great Smoky Mountains. The land between the ridge of the Smok-
ies and the thirty-mile-long dam lake became part of Great Smoky Mountains National
Park. A document was created and disseminated in which the concerned national, state,
and local governmental agencies agreed to build a new road on higher ground above the
north shore of Fontana Lake. This road would provide access to the twenty-seven cem-
eteries surviving in the lands conveyed to the National Park Service. Part of that road was
built in the 1950s and early 1960s, but then construction stopped and the road gained a
new and by now legendary name, “The Road to Nowhere.”
How the ensuing tug-of-war developed, and how a new form of Decoration Day
emerged in the cemeteries of the park’s “North Shore,” comprise a special focus of this
volume and the primary focus of an earlier published report (see the Project History).
Although in Chapter 5 we tell the compelling story of the North Shore cultural revolu-
tion, we place it in the context of the wider practice of cemetery decoration outside the
national park. There seems to be a symbiotic relationship between the decorations within
the park and beyond the park boundaries. Taken together, these two forms of Decoration
Day make our region of western North Carolina one of the most varied and vibrant areas
in the Upland South for this venerable and culturally powerful custom.
We launch our volume neither with the history of Decoration Day nor with its geo-
graphical spread. Instead, beginning in medias res, Chapter 1 off ers our own direct experi-
ences and observations while att ending two decorations in western North Carolina. The
decoration at Proctor Cemetery typifi es the decorations held today within Great Smoky
Mountains National Park. The decoration at Brendle Hill Cemetery in Swain County’s
Alarka community provides an example of the decorations held in regional cemeteries
outside the park. Taken together, with the comparisons and contrasts they provide, they
introduce us from the ground up to decorations as a cultural form.
Chapter 2 turns to the overall features of Decoration Day in western North Carolina.
In Chapter 3 we step back to look at the cemeteries themselves, which comprise the cul-
viii introduction
tural framework within which the ritual of Decoration Day is enacted. Then, by degrees,
we move to the larger history of the region, the special history of the North Shore removal
and revolution, and the origin, diff usion, and range of Decoration Day as a custom. The
fi nal chapters turn our att ention to the North Shore and Decoration Day in sign, symbol,
and art; the community heroes whose devotion is so important to the health and vibrancy
of cemeteries and Decoration Day; and fi nally some thoughts on the deeper meaning of
this extraordinary American cultural tradition.
This book is jointly authored. Karen and I have worked together on every stage of
this project, from the fi eldwork through the preparation of the book and the exhibition.
The primary responsibility for creating the photographs is hers, and the primary respon-
sibility for creating the text is mine. Hence the “I” in this text is Alan Jabbour, with Karen
Singer Jabbour serving as the fi rst and best reader.
Alan Jabbour
Memorial Day 2009
introduction ix