Thursday, July 25, 2013

Dying to Ride

Seeing these hearses reminded me of a story one of my elderly cousins shared. Uncle John Markham was working in his field when he saw a hearse and funeral procession. Curious, he later asked a neighbor about the funeral. The neighbor told him, "Man, that was your Ma."

John's mother, Mary Byrd Markham, died 28 Oct 1937. A wake was held in the home of the deceased, buried the next day. Twenty miles was between the residences of the son and mother and I suppose his siblings thought one of the others told him. There was a rift between John and his parents, which likely didn't encourage anyone to notify John of his mother's death.

These hearses were from New Orleans, circa 1875-1890.

Hearses seen at Grand Gulf Military State Park.

2 comments:

Cheri Herring said...

I love the pictures of the hearses. Family rifts are sad. I can only imagine what John thought about when he was told of his mother's passing.

LindaRe said...

Family rifts sometime pass to the next generation. Forgiveness is so hard in families.