spring

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: found and lost.

I found my great-grandmother’s headstone in January. I’ve lost it again.

I’ve never been inside Odd Fellows during growing season, and it shows. One vine-strangled pine looks much like any other, and who would have guessed the young wisteria would be chest-high in mid-April? I meandered fruitlessly for two hours, lopping listlessly at random ropes of vine, acutely conscious that unless I stumbled over the pile, I would pass right by and never see it. So many lessons to learn, including “BLAZE TRAILS.”

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, April 2021.

Lane Street Project: spring has come.

I confess to some shock. Spring is relentless in eastern North Carolina; April is the scene of boundless vegetal fecundity. The green took my breath away.

Odd Fellows is fighting back.

The boundary between Rountree and Odd Fellows cemeteries.

The winter’s hard work is not undone, however. Though new sprigs of wisteria sprout from the stubs of vines, young trees have been thinned out, and the forbidding leading edge of solid woodland has retreated a few dozen yards. We are likely to halt organized clean-ups during the summer in order to avoid some of the hazards of wild woods and to focus on several related projects. Thus, your help in the next few weeks is even more critical to maintaining the progress we have made. Please join us April 24!

Henry Tart’s headstone, which was nearly invisible from just a few feet away just months ago, is now readily seen from the woodline.

If you or your group were not able to join the Lane Street Project this past winter, I hope you will make plans to do so in 2021-22. Many hands make light work, and our ancestors need you.