At the Cemetery – Marie Kennedy Joy

The 52 Ancestors’ blogging prompt this week is “At the Cemetery.” Appropriate for Memorial Day, of course, but a bit of serendipity for me. I’d pulled out a box of family memorabilia to sort and scan. The first thing out of the box was a yellowed envelope labeled “Deed to my lot in Blakely Cemetry – Marie Joy.” She is my great-grandmother on my father’s side of the family.

Inside was the deed form, nicely filled out and embossed with two seals. Very official looking. The lot was purchased in 1937, so probably at the time of her husband, Henry Alfred Joy’s death. It would have been a double lot.

The cemetery location in Greenwood County is known to me as many of the Martins, McGhees, and Joys are buried there. Their daughter Cora is buried there with her husband Charles Lorenzo Martin. Some of Cora and Ren’s children are there as well (Zella and Dorothy). Of the McGhees, there my grandparents, Clarence and Ruth McGhee and their daughter, Melba McGhee Harlan.

Also in the envelope was a list of expenses for a funeral. It’s unclear if it was from Alfred’s funeral or from Marie’s. The handwriting looks like that on the outside of the envelope so my guess is that Marie wrote this in 1937 after her husband’s funeral.

I’ll transcribe it here to make it searchable online.

• Dr Fairbrother $5
• Dr Manning $25
• Lot in cemetry $10
• Digging grave  $8
• Minister  $5
• Singer  $2
• monument  $90
• burial clothes $8
• flowers  $5
• Dr Lose  $38.50
• Mr Cook $295
• prescription, Dr Manning  $1
• total  $492.50

So, it would appear that this includes the medical expenses for Alfred Joy’s last illness. A newspaper clipping tells that he was bedfast for 3 months before dying. One wonders if it was a stroke or cancer or another illness.

The newspaper also gave us the name of the minister (Rev. G. Russell Fosmire of the Madison Methodist Church) and the singer (Mrs. Lois Hamilton sang “Saved By Grace” and “Sweet By and By”).

The last bit of paper in the old envelope was labeled “Family of Mrs Marie Kennedy Joy.” Here’s the list (with my own notes in parenthesis):

• Father – May 14, 1821 – 1906 (David Greacen Kennedy)
• Mother – Nov 14, 1826 – 1918 (Elizabeth Jane Rosebaugh)
• Ed – Feb 13, 1851 (Edward Newton Kennedy)
• Jim – Apr 1, 1853 (James Kerr Kennedy)
• Ella – Feb 20, 1855 (Ellen Kennedy)
• B.T. – Aug 13, 1857 (Bayard Taylor Kennedy)
• Walter – Mar 1, 1860 (Walter C. Kennedy)
• Marie – Dec 1, 1864 (Marie C. Kennedy)
• John – Oct 8, 1868 (John B. Kennedy)
• D.G. Jr. – Jan 23, 1870 (David Greacen Kennedy Jr.)

I started comparing the names and dates to the family tree that I maintain on Ancestry. Everyone matches up. I wish I had the rest of the middle names.