On our trip in June to Southwest Oklahoma, in addition to tracing my mother's childhood roots, I was searching for the burial place of the only one of my 4 great-grandmothers I hadn't found. Earlier this year I had looked for Emma J. McElyea and learned she was buried in Sayre Doxey Cemetery. After we got to Sayre, it was easy to find on a hill about three miles east of town. Doxey was a one-time rival town, named for one of the earliest ranchers in the area. 
Right near the entrance, I found these tiny yellow flowers blooming. I don't yet know what they are, but they seem to be the same as the larger flowers on the cemetery sign. There has to be a story there.
We went out to the cemetery in the evening on the day we arrived in Sayre. We thought if we couldn't find a marker, we would try again the next day after getting a map from the town funeral home. But we headed for a part that seemed older--Emma died suddenly in 1914 and Jesse lived until 1950--and after about 15 minutes, we spied it. Their marker appears newer than 1950, perhaps placed by one of their daughters. It is out of the same red granite that we found in the Wichita Mountains on our trip.
Jesse and Emma are in block 4, not far from the south entrance to the cemetery. Their grave has a view to the west across part of the North Fork of the Red River valley, and it is very peaceful. I know they came from Arkansas to this land between 1901 and 1910, when my grandpa Earl was a young boy. I wish I knew more about their life and maybe someday I'll uncover more information.
Two days later we were heading for Tulsa, and we stopped at the Stroud Cemetery so I could leave a bouquet for my great grandmother Belle Paris. I know this cemetery and plot well, having visited it as a child and being present at 5 burials in it--both great grandparents, my grandparents Mary and Earl, and my Aunt Bess. Belle is one of two great-grandmothers I knew in life. She died in 1962, just shy of age 98.
The two families -- McElyea and Paris --
joined in 1912 when Earl McElyea married Mary Paris. Mary had gone to Sayre to teach, and I think that's where she met Earl. Their daughter was Frances, my mother. The Paris plot is bounded by three large Abelia bushes, and their small white blooms were attracting a lot of bees. Mary planted them after Earl died. I helped her and later my mother weed, prune and water them. The 4th one didn't make it but three of them are now taller than I am. We should have had pruning tools with us! (Note to self: next time.....)
As we closed this gap in my quest to visit the graves of all four great-grandmothers, I realized something remarkable. ALL of them lived, died and are buried along the storied Mother Road, old U.S. Highway 66. Sayre is the farthest west, then Stroud. The great-grandmothers on my father's side are buried in Missouri. Sarah Gilmore Brown is in the Springfield cemetery although her husband is in San Antonio. I visited her and heard her stories when I was a child. And Martha Stanley Burch is in a small country cemetery, Salem, in Lawrence County just north of Mt. Vernon. Of course, US 66 didn't exist when they moved into new country from their homes in Arkansas, Tennessee, or Kentucky. I know the ones in Oklahoma came by train. The all moved in order to start over: Emma had buried her youngest daughter, 7 months old; Belle and her husband moved west after their tobacco crop failed in Kentucky; Sarah and William sought a better farm; Martha and her husband left a slave state for one that was caught up in border conflicts during the Civil War. All of them lived into their upper 90s, except Emma, who died at age 48. Emma, of course, is the one who started my quest. I am looking forward to putting their stories into a narrative that will trace their lives.
Over the years, our Christmas tree, Norm's and mine, has evolved into a family album of sorts. When I go back through photos, as I did this summer looking for images for the 40th anniversary celebration, there seemed to be a few constants for picture taking: Christmas decorations, pets, fronts of houses, and garden plants. This is our tree as it looked on Christmas morning, 2008, before we dug into the presents.
The oddly tilted foil star on top of the tree is a rescued ornament from one of my mother's housecleaning sprees. I know, Unclutterer says that when something new comes in, something old must go out. Mother practiced that. When my parents got an angel for their tree topper, this star, which I remember from my earliest days, was consigned to the trash. Except I brought it to my home and it has topped our trees for 40 Christmases.
Mother always liked this funny little styrofoam snowman. I don't know what it's sentimental value was for her, but it is one of her ornaments I kept. The pipe cleaners are really faded, but once on the tree, it's handy to fill in one of those gaps that always appears right in front!
My grandmother Burch gave me this plastic bird off of her tree when I was a little girl. I recall her tree in the house on North Florence only dimly. I know it had big bright lights (probably C7) and a whole flock of these birds. It goes on a high branch every year.
Birds were popular in Norm's family, too. We acquired this one at the family auction at the Linville reunion in 2008. Unfortunately we have lost the notes about where it came from: Norm's mother, or one of his grandmothers. But it is glass, and has a spring loaded clip to cling to a branch. This was its first year on our tree.
When I was a girl, I always looked forward to a visit with Cousin Eunice, who was a relative of my Grandpa McElyea. About the time I graduated from college, she presented me with three ornaments she had made herself, with beads, sequins and pins on styrofoam balls. One is blue, one is silver, and this red one completes the set. They go on the tree every year in her memory.
One of the last letters I wrote to Santa Claus was on Christmas Eve of a year when snow unexpectedly showed up in the forecast. I think I was 7 or 8. I asked for a last minute change to my list, if Santa had a sled in his sleigh. Amazed, I read a note from Santa the next morning, neatly printed at the bottom of my letter. He said he was out of sleds, but he was sure I would get one for my birthday in January. And I did. Upstairs in my Dad's metal box of precious letters he saved is that letter. Not long after Norm and I were married, Daddy made this wooden replica of a 1950s sled as an ornament for me. It gets wrapped in bubble wrap when it is put away and always has a very visible spot near the top of our tree. And I start to cry every time I hang it. 
There are many more family ornaments on our tree, but in time we had to start making our own memories. Christmas of 1968, I wanted a silver and red theme for the small Scotch Pine we bought (for about $7, I think.) Being on a tight budget, we strung popcorn and cranberries, bought red and white candy canes, and finished the tree with these pine cones. We picked them up in a cemetery in Pittsburg KS about two blocks from our apartment. We invested in a can of silver spray paint that must have also been a wood preservative, for they are still sound, 40 years later. Originally they were strung with silver and red metallic ribbon but after it gave out, I restrung them with red.
A few years after the pine cones, we were in Colorado and the church Norm served while he was in seminary had an Advent workshop. I was in charge of a children's craft room. We made these ornaments out of the old cardboard egg cartons, glue, tempera paint and gold glitter. It's another hardy reminder that one can create something of lasting beauty and memory out of the most everyday things, even things some people would throw away.
This Christmas, like all Christmases that occur after all of your ancestors have passed on, was bittersweet. But I decided that I would put everything in our storage boxes on the tree, that I wanted to remember as much as I could of our individual histories and our history together. I know of three women for whom Christmas 2007 turned out to be their last one. I got to thinking that at this time of life, there's no point in "saving" some things for next year. If they ever had value, they have value now, and I will enjoy them now, and hopefully for many more Christmases to come.
On our trip in June to Southwest Oklahoma, in addition to tracing my mother's childhood roots, I was searching for the burial place of the only one of my 4 great-grandmothers I hadn't found. Earlier this year I had looked for Emma J. McElyea and learned she was buried in Sayre Doxey Cemetery. After we got to Sayre, it was easy to find on a hill about three miles east of town. Doxey was a one-time rival town, named for one of the earliest ranchers in the area. 
Jesse and Emma are in block 4, not far from the south entrance to the cemetery. Their grave has a view to the west across part of the North Fork of the Red River valley, and it is very peaceful. I know they came from Arkansas to this land between 1901 and 1910, when my grandpa Earl was a young boy. I wish I knew more about their life and maybe someday I'll uncover more information.
Two days later we were heading for Tulsa, and we stopped at the Stroud Cemetery so I could leave a bouquet for my great grandmother Belle Paris. I know this cemetery and plot well, having visited it as a child and being present at 5 burials in it--both great grandparents, my grandparents Mary and Earl, and my Aunt Bess. Belle is one of two great-grandmothers I knew in life. She died in 1962, just shy of age 98.
