When I first began looking into my own history, I knew nothing beyond three generations of my Bailey ancestry. Upon learning from an uncle that my great-great-grandfather, Benjamin, was buried at Mt. Vernon, a community north of Forest City in Rutherford county, I rushed to find his grave (shown at left). The family of his youngest son, Phillip, was buried nearby, but nowhere could I find evidence of a grave for his wife, Lucinda Braddy.

That very day, we happened to visit my aunt, Ruth Rollins Bailey, who was then 94 years old. I told her of our visit to the grave site and wondered why his wife Lucy was not buried with her husband. “Well, I can tell you why,” she said, and she did:

When Lucy died, in February 1905, fourteen years after Benjamin passed on, she was living with a daughter in Shelby. After the funeral service, a horse-drawn wagon bearing her coffin set out to Mt. Vernon Church for the interment.

It was a snowy day, and by the time the wagon reached Wall's Church north of Ellenboro, the storm became so bad they could go no further. The party decided to bury Lucy then and there at Wall's. If the thought was to later move her to Mt. Vernon, that was never done. She lies at Wall's to this day, near the graves of several of her children who obviously chose to spend eternity with their mother.

The moral of this account: whenever you're around elderly relatives, talk to them, ask questions, find out what they may remember about the past.

—Reno Bailey