Odd Fellows cemetery

Lane Street Project: season 4, workday 7.

Among my mother’s many gifts to me was the boundless feeding of my childhood curiosities and the freedom to make my own way. What a blessing to be here on her special day. (And share cupcakes from Treat Yo’ Self Bakery.)

The Senior Force used mini-chainsaws to cut up deadfall, and I helped drag it into piles for volunteers to move to the curb. We’re working toward the back on the west side of Odd Fellows and are gradually taking down all the saplings.

These two men are the lifeblood of Lane Street Project’s work. For four years, Castonoble Hooks and R. Briggs Sherwood have hoisted onto their backs the real work of reclaiming Odd Fellows, and I am immensely grateful. It’s rare that I actually get to join them in the field, and I enjoyed walking the land and plotting next steps with them this morning.

A corner of a foot marker showing part of the first link of the Odd Fellows chain. How many markers still lie hidden here?

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, March 2024.

Lane Street Project: Odd Fellows in spring.

You can barely see them, which is my point. For the first time in decades of springs, wisteria does not choke the treetops of Odd Fellows Cemetery. (There are also many fewer treetops.) The war is not over, but many battles have been won, and I thank every volunteer who has helped Lane Street Project get this far.

With the Vick family plot cleared, family members have been able to leave flowers and other tokens at their loved ones’ graves.

Ignore for the moment that power pole desecrating Rountree Cemetery. Focus instead on the iconic headstones of Della Hines Barnes and Dave Barnes, gleaming in the March sun.

The bright interior of Odd Fellows, where we are focusing our attention this season. Won’t you help?

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, March 2024.

Lane Street Project: a choice.

Atlas Obscura recently posted an article about restoration efforts at a “long-lost” African-American cemetery in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The story is numbingly familiar, of course, though each of these cemeteries followed a unique path from prime to nadir to rediscovery. Toward the end of the piece, in which we learn that historians at Middle Tennessee State University are spearheading the effort to reclaim Pleasant Garden — there’s this refreshing bit:

The city is interested in restoring it, too. As we have seen in Statesville, North Carolina, there’s nothing that inherently prevents a city from investing in the reclamation of privately owned (or abandoned) cemeteries. The City of Wilson’s representatives have held up their hands against involvement with Odd Fellows Cemetery, citing a “slippery slope” argument. In other words, if they do for Odd Fellows, they’ll have to do for all old private cemeteries in the city whose owners are absent or unknown. Wilson has made a choice.

Actually, there are only a handful of private cemeteries within Wilson’s city limits. The two most prominent, other than the LSP graveyards, are the Winstead family cemetery surrounded by the parking lot of the old Parkwood Mall and the tiny cemetery at Pine and Kenan Streets that the City paid good money to have surveyed via ground-penetrating radar back in 2019. (I blogged about the latter, but apparently accidentally deleted the post a couple of months ago.) However, none of the others holds the historical significance of Odd Fellows. Founded by Samuel H. Vick, Wilson’s most prominent 19th/early 20th century African-American for accomplished African-American men and women locked out of burial in bucolic, segregated Maplewood, Odd Fellows deserves the recognition and sustained care that only the City can provide.

Thank you for sending me this link, Debbie Price Gouldin!

Lane Street Project: an Odd Fellows funeral.

Photographs of Lane Street Project cemeteries during their period of usage are exceedingly rare. The photo, which may depict friends or relatives of Samuel H. Vick‘s family, appears to have been taken in Odd Fellows Cemetery. An older woman, a man in perhaps late middle-age, a young woman, and girl stand behind what appears to be a grave marker dedicated with a small American flag. (Was it Memorial Day?) Bearded irises grow in the foreground. Two grave markers are clearly visible at middle distance to the right, with others perhaps beyond.

I am grateful to an anonymous supporter for use of this image.

Lane Street Project: the Vick family plot, revisited.

Look at the difference a year makes! The Vick family plot — right to left, Viola Vick, Daniel and Fannie Vick, Samuel H. Vick, Annie M. Vick (the marble slab just beyond), and Irma Vick. The spaces between these markers suggest additional burials, and we will probe carefully in search of markers.

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, February 2024.

Lane Street Project: season 4, workday 2.

The bitter wind and cold got the better of us Saturday morning, and the Senior Force made the sound decision to cancel the workday. Today, then, was all the sweeter.

Jen Kehrer and the “Junior Force” arrived early to remove trash from the roadside and to beautify the chainlink fence between Odd Fellows and Vick Cemeteries. These children chose to spend their Martin Luther King Jr. day off as a day on, and we deeply appreciate their care and contribution.

Wright Brothers arrived with the equipment and expertise needed to demolish the last big thicket in the mid-section of Odd Fellows Cemetery and to remove numerous trees. Castonoble Hooks opined that the tonnage taken out today was greater than the total of prior seasons. Briggs Sherwood also noted the day’s excellent progress and lauded Wright Brothers for their careful work amid difficult, delicate terrain.

Our next workday, in partnership with Scarborough House Resort, is January 27. Please come see our progress and help advance our reclamation of Odd Fellows Cemetery.

Please consider Wright Brothers Lawncare and Landscaping, 919-252-9130, for your professional needs. Thank you, John Kirk Barnes (of The Kirk’s Flowers, 252-299-0903) and Josiah Wright. Photos courtesy of Castonoble Hooks and R. Briggs Sherwood.