The Stewart Cemetery Association Yearly Meeting

This post is definitely a "Welcome to Life at the Hales" sort of post.... :)

One of our little 'quirks' is that Daddy is the President of the Stewart Cemetery Association, which is a little graveyard about two miles up the road from us. We meet once a year and have a business meeting on the grounds with a potluck lunch afterwards!

It sounds boring, but it's actually really neat!

The older folks tell stories from years gone by....who married who, and what good food their mothers cooked! :)

Daddy opening the meeting

Mr. Wayne Stewart giving the devotional. It was one of his great-great-grandfathers that originally dedicated the land for the cemetery...the oldest known grave in Hunt County!!!

Mr. Truman Beesinger telling his family history in this area...he thinks he had the most relatives/ancestors burried here!

Mr. Mike Massey giving the Secretary/Treasurer's report

Still miss him!!!

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And Uncle Roma and Aunt Reba!

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Took this picture with Deb and Jon S. in mind....there are several graves of Confederate Veterans!!! :)

Every year I walk around and look at the graves and ponder what these peoples lives might have been like, doing the math to see how old they lived to be, were they Christians, I wonder?

The oldest grave in the whole cemetery is actually unmarked, but it belongs to young child, that died not long after they settled this area...the poor Mother...what was she like? was she my age? they married young, back then......?

I have heard that 'Mother' is one of the sweeetest names on earth.....

This isn't the Mother of the oldest grave, but this gravestone has always intrigued me. She only lived 25 years, yet she was a Mother to someone........... ♥

And so, I shall close with a poem that is simply titled:

Motherhood

Mary, the Christ long slain, passed silently,

Following the children joyously astir

Under the cedrus and the olive tre,

Pausing to let their laughter float to her-

Each voice an echo of a voice more dear,

She saw a little Christ in every face.

Then came another woman gliding near

To watch the tender life which filled the place.

And Mary sought the woman's hand and spoke:

"I know thee not, yet know thy memory tossed

With all a thousand dreams their eyes evoke

Who bring to thee a child beloved and lost.

"I, too, have rocked my little One.

And He was fair!

Oh, fairer than the fairest sun,

And, like its rays through amber spun,

His sun-bright hair.

Still I can see it shine and shine."

"Even so," the woman said, "was mine."

"His ways were ever darling ways"-

And Mary smiled-

"So soft, so clinging! Glad relays

Of love were all His precious days.

My little Child!

My vanished star! My music fled!"

"Even so was mine," the woman said.

And Mary whispered: "Tell me, thou,

Of thine." And she:

"Oh, mine was rosy as a bough

Blooming with roses, sent, somehow,

To bloom for me!

His balmy fingers left a thrill

Deep in my breast that warms me still."

Then she gazed down some wilder, darker hour,

And said, when Mary questioned, knowing not:

"Who art thou, mother of so sweet a flower?" -

"I'm the mother of Iscariot."

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