My son, Linton, lives in Indianapolis, about a four-hour drive from Harrodsburg.  With his hectic schedule we don’t have as much time as I would like to spend together – the mother coming out in me!  But once a year we have our day – or weekend – and this year that time was the second weekend of this month.  And what a day it was – up early, leaving at 7:00 a.m. for Louisville.  After a yummy breakfast at Mimi’s Café, we headed for the first of two bookstores.  A Book By Its Cover and All Booked Up are mainly on-line bookstores, but they allow us to come to their house and peruse the books.  I sent my lists and they had certain books pulled for me.  Both bookstores have Kentucky county histories, pictorials, biographies, etc.  A sampling of my purchases – Ohio County, Kentucky In The Olden Days; Survey of Historic Sites in Kentucky, Jefferson County; Chaplin Hills, History of Perryville, Boyle County; Looking Back, A collection of Columns of Historical and Genealogical Interest; Notes on One of the Early Ballard Families of Kentucky, Including the Ballard Massacre – twenty volumes in all, many very old.  Think of all the stories and information I will have to share with you!

Next came the interesting part – cemeteries.  Linton has always been willing to trod cemetery grounds with me.  Like the rest of the family he is not interested enough in genealogy to research himself, but they love me enough to go with me and help – and listen to my stories!

Our first stop was the Bullitt Family Cemetery – located near the parking area of Oxmoor Mall, on Shelbyville Road.  I didn’t know it was there until the week before!  I have driven past it many times, but it is fairly well hidden by trees.  The cemetery is surrounded by a brick fence, with black wrought iron atop the brick – the gate was locked.  Disappointed, but not deterred, we took photos through the gate and they turned out very well.  The older, above ground stones were in the back of the cemetery but could be photographed at brick level.  Now let me add that the temperature was 28 degrees and the wind was biting.  Did that stop us?  Of course not!

After a trip to Eat Naïve where we had French Onion Soup on toast – and a cup of hot tea! – we resumed our cemetery search.  We visited Forest Home Cemetery on Petersburg Road – one of the oldest dedicated African American burial grounds in Kentucky, and also the resting place of Eliza Curtis Hundley Tevis, who was born a slave but gained her freedom in 1833.  More on Eliza in a later post.

Eastern Cemetery, on Baxter Avenue, was our next destination.  There has been much consternation over this cemetery.  Mass burials, using the same graves over and over, and body parts from cadavers buried in strange containers are the sorrowful tales mentioned.

And our last cemetery was Cave Hill Cemetery, located beside Eastern Cemetery.  Ritchey and I had visited there earlier in the fall, but I failed to take all the photos I needed in one plot.  Shall we say we were frozen by this point?

A few other stops to record stores and other places led us to dinner – at Feast BQ.  Oh, my, such great baby back ribs and sides.  What a day!  And spent with one with whom the conversation never stopped!  I did share him with the rest of the family on Sunday.

Bullitt Family Cemetery