Houses For The Dead

I am forever amazed at what can be found as one takes time to get out and ramble across this beautiful land in which we live. It seems that at every turn and down every dim road there is one more thing uncovered that was only known to exist by at the most a small handful of people. 

It seems that when we happen on some nugget of information or find one rare thing that it opens up a total world of information on that particular thing or even many more. For those of us who continually ramble, look, and investigate it becomes addicting. The urge sometimes gets almost over whelming to go look see find and investigate. 

Of course then there is the fact that once you find you must photograph it and then from time to time you must revisit that same thing again in the future. Possibly more than once we go back. Always wondering how has it fared this long. Possibly wondering how long it will be there before nature reclaims it totally.

Recently I found out about a place called Caledonia, Al. Now at this time I won’t go into any history on this place because I feel that there is too much to contain in this writing. However, I do want to share some insights to my visit there. Primarily I want to share about something that I had heard of but never witnessed in my life. In fact I it is something that to be honest I heard about a good while back but for some reason it was one of those things that I just filed in my memory but never took time to do anything with it.

What I am talking about I found in Bear Creek Cemetery. Bear Creek Cemetery is found down a narrow road in Southern Wilcox County. It is about halfway between Oak Hill and McWilliams just off the east side of Al Hwy. 21.

Although I had traveled that road hundreds of times in my life I had absolutely no clue that it existed. One of those things that you pass by so often but for whatever reason never take time to notice nor appreciate.

Because of the fact that I am very interested in history I am often invited to join social media groups that discuss things of historical significance. That is how I stumbled upon this gem. I was invited to join the social media group called Bear Creek Historical and Preservation Society. After seeing this group I found out about this old church and another one that is abandoned between this one and the state highway. Immediately upon the discovery of this one I knew I had to take a look see.

It was well on over in the day when we set out to visit this site. I had not been to this area rambling in quite some time and I did not have any pictures of it. With the directions I found on the group page I knew exactly where to look to find it. Of course, I had to visit some stuff before I got there but eventually we made it in to the church. 

Once we got to the church, I immediately took some photos of the church. Although I focus primarily on the old churches when I go to these places. I seldom ramble through the cemeteries themselves because of the fact that I am not as focused on the cemeteries as the churches and communities themselves.

Many times I walk to the fence of a cemetery and just take a few photos of the cemetery as a whole and leave. Today as I walked to the fence and started to look I saw it. Never before in real life did, I remember ever seeing one. There off to my right and down the fence was what first appeared to me to be a shed out in the cemetery. Now to be perfectly honest at first I thought it was a storage shed or something. It did not even register in my mind that it was actually a covering over graves.

It was at that moment it hit me. Wait a minute, I had heard of these before. I had seen pictures of some somewhere before actually but for whatever reason as I said above it was just info that I got but never focused on. Actually there was not just that one but there were two of the I the cemetery.

Now all of a sudden my attention was drawn to them. I had to get closer and get a photo of them and of course find out more.

Immediately I found out that they were called Grave Houses, or Grave Shelters. Quoting this shared by Martha Grimes Lampkin: In its Guide to Common Alabama Grave Markers, the Alabama Historical Commission defines a grave shelter as “a wood structure placed over an in-ground burial, usually with a gable roof and sides made of vertical pickets or boards. Some have boards with decorative jig work and a few are constructed with doors and windows to resemble houses. Grave shelters were common in some areas of the South and are generally associated with Native Americans and groups of Scotch-Irish ancestry.”

The purpose of these grave houses is not necessarily given as I guess they could serve numerous purposes. First of all in the 1800’s people were not buried in vaults. They were only buried either wrapped in some sort of fabric or just in their clothes, or in a wooden box that some friend, neighbor, or family member made for them. Therefore, quite possibly they served to protect the grave from the weather. Secondly, they served as a means to shade the grave in the hot summer days when family members or other visitors came to visit the graves. I am sure that there were probably other reasons for them as well.

Many of the ones in Alabama have fallen in from decay and nature has reclaimed them. There are estimated by some to be the oldest in Alabama still standing was estimated to be built in 1853. There are supposedly about 40 of them documented to be still standing in Alabama at this time. No one knows how many there have been built. 

I have been told that there is another one standing in the Hopewell Cemetery a few miles up the road from this one and I have been told of another one that I have not been able to confirm. 

This is just one more of the rare wonders of the past that is still standing out there in this great and beautiful Southland that we love to wander through. One only can imagine what else there is out there that is left to explore. The rare unknown that is right there under ones nose that many times we have passed right by without noticing or even knowing. I can only imagine what the next adventure holds and I can’t wait.

This is one thing that I never expected to find on this visit. I hope that there are others that see them and enjoy them just as we found them and were able to enjoy them for many years to come.