Cemeteries

(The Kathryn Tucker Windham blog is written by her daughter, Dilcy Windham Hilley.)


My mother loved cemeteries.

As children, we never questioned why Mother would pull the car into a country cemetery just to roam about and read the tombstones.  It was part of the journey, a part I learned to love, too, as I got older and wandered through graveyards with my mother.  One of our favorite epitaphs was on a headstone in southwest Alabama.  It read simply: She did what she could.  Mother and I often teased each other with that phrase when outcomes were disappointing

Mother had a long-standing tradition of taking her guests on picnics to Old Live Oak Cemetery in Selma. It is a remarkable resting place, with curtains of Spanish moss draping the oak trees and a coolness that even the river city heat can’t dispel. 

Mother would pack pimento cheese sandwiches, potato salad, and Little Debbie Cakes in a cooler, pour up a jug of tea, and grab a quilt to use as a tablecloth.  Being a believer in recycling, she would take along Tide detergent measuring cups to hold the potato salad servings.  Pretense was never a word associated with my mother.

Then she and her guests would select a family to dine with and spread the quilt along the raised brick walls of that family’s plot.  And have a picnic.  It was her signature entertainment, and dozens of friends and acquaintances enjoyed it through the years.