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