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Family remembers graveyard site By ANDIE LEATHERMAN, LTN Staff Writer March 25, 2002 - Siblings Winnie Hoffman, Ray Hoffman and Ruth Hoffman Rhyne say they remember their mother’s admonishments to respect the simple graveyard a few miles from their Walker Branch Road homeplace. Today, whether the shallow holes are even graves is being called into question. Developers Troy Motz and Kenneth Tucker hope to construct a 24-home community at the site. The land in question makes up a small portion of the tract. Patricia Richard Shuford and her sister Deborah Richard Abernathy, who own the property with their brother Danny Richard, told Lincolnton’s planning board in February that the graveyard is a myth. But the Hoffman children said they would collect violets growing near the graveyard on the Saturday before Easter. “That’s how we learned about it (graveyard),” Rhyne said. The blooms would become part of an outdoor “Easter nest” that the Easter bunny filled with colored eggs and other goodies. Rhyne remembers a rose bush on one of the graves. She badly wanted to pluck the flower but that was against her mother’s rules. “I would have given anything for one of those pink blossoms to go with the purple flowers but Mama said ‘no,’” Rhyne said. “We were never allowed to pick flowers on the graves.” Rhyne, 78, remembers eight to 10 flat rocks, serving as headstones. “It was red rock, maybe flint,” she said. Ray Hoffman, 75, remembers their mother taking them to watch an airplane land in a nearby pasture. As the family passed the graveyard, the children were warned not to step on the graves, he said. All remember their mother telling them that black families used the graveyard. “My Mama remembered it as a graveyard for colored people,” Rhyne said. Boyce and Linda Leatherman, whose property adjoins the possible graveyard, want to find out more. The couple has interviewed five other older community members, who, along with the Hoffman siblings, have signed affidavits saying they remember the graveyard. In March, the planning board approved the development with the condition that the developer determine whether there is a cemetery on the site. If one exists, it must be fenced or moved in accordance with state statutes. According to Alan May, an archaeologist at Gastonia’s Schiele Museum, a soil test is the only way to determine if the area was used as a graveyard. The Leathermans want to split the cost of the test with developers or the City of Lincolnton. They will formally make this proposal during the April council meeting.
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© 2001 Lincoln Times-News |
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