MORE "DECORATION DAY" MEMORIES

It can be rainy and cool on Memorial Day, as it was this year, but Mother’s celebration was never cancelled on account of the weather – or anything else, for that matter. I remember a year or two when the rain fell in a driving wind at the Burnt Ridge Cemetery. We hopped out of the car and quickly made bouquets while the wind whipped our skirts. Then we propped the bouquets beside the graves, hoped for the best, and drove off.

I feel a little guilty for not continuing my mother’s Memorial Day traditions. If we’re at the farm, we place artificial flowers on family graves at the Gilbert Cemetery in remembrance of my dad and his people, but I never carry a bouquet to Mother’s grave.

That’s right. My parents are not buried together. Mother is buried with her first husband, Fairly Walrath, at the Normal Hill Cemetery while my dad is buried at the Gilbert Cemetery with his family. This was determined before they were married. Mother’s plot was next to Fairly, and my dad was included in the family plot at Gilbert. I was troubled that the name on Mother’s grave is “Dorothy Walrath” when for the last 50 years of her life, her name was “Dorothy Dobson,” so we added the notation: “Married Vance Dobson, 1947.”

I say my dad was included in the family plot, but through some mix-up for which Uncle Ernest Robinson was responsible, my dad’s place was usurped. To compensate, my dad and Aunt Ethel were cremated and interred on top of Uncle Ernest’s grave. And that’s legal. (Yes, there are rules that govern this sort of thing.) Well, it serves Uncle Ernest right! The whole thing is rather funny now, but I remember the day when remaining family members realized they were short burial plots. No one was laughing.

One Memorial Day in the early 1960s, we arranged to meet sister Nina, who lived in Lewiston, at the Normal Hill Cemetery in the late afternoon/evening. The days were long, so there should be no problem, right? We’d be finished and gone well before dark. For some reason, Nina was quite late, and so there we were – Grandpa Portfors, Mother, and me – waiting for her. As it got later and later, we noticed Grandpa becoming more and more agitated and upset. When Nina finally arrived, Grandpa paced impatiently while the bouquets were made, then placed one on Grandma’s grave and hurried to the car. It was then we realized that he was superstitious about the cemetery. It didn’t matter that we would have daylight for two more hours. It was after 6:00 and he was taking no chances. KW