CHAPTER TWO

CEMETERIES OF THE BOONSLICK AND THEIR ROLE

I.  WHY STUDY THE CEMETERIES?

            Why choose the Boonslick as the region to explore for similarities and contrasts in both art and culture as found in cemeteries?  Cemeteries are not magnificent mansions nor are they usually places where great historical events occurred.  So why choose them?   Why explore such a macabre topic at all?  Why are cemeteries so uncomfortable to discuss, let alone maintain?

            Perhaps Philippe Aries addressed this last question best when he stated that modern death is invisible.  He says that sex was the taboo subject in the nineteenth century; the twentieth century freely discusses sexual matters, but death has now been reduced to a matter of machines in a hospital and lawsuits over whether to turn the machine off or not.¹  Aries continued by saying death as an institution is now unnamable and that the industrial revolution and especially the American business of embalming soldiers during the War Between the States caused the United States to undergo a profound change in attitude.²  Embalming allowed the preservation of the deceased in a lifelike form.   Death and funerals became associated with "the family" which was the bastion guarded, protected and controlled by the women of the nineteenth century household.  It was women who cared for the dying and wore the visible symbols of mourning.  The more the world changed around them (and the Victorian world changed rapidly), the more people longed for old and familiar ways.  A funeral and then a gravestone were ways to show not only respect and love for an individual, but to carry forth family unity.  Victorian mourning raised the consciousness of the missing to new heights or depths of absurdity as the case may be and fulfilled a cultural role as much as being a longing for the deceased.

            Thus, a look at cemeteries reveals how the Industrial Revolution changed people's lives and attitudes in profound ways.  The settlement of the Boonslick began about 1810 just as the impact of the Industrial Revolution was being felt in the United States.  The first generation of white settlers in the Boonslick region were not really familiar with this impact and by living on the westward frontier, they managed to avoid many of the complications and changes until the 1840's.  The Industrial Revolution had impacted the Boonslick by the time of the War Between the States and continues to impact the region in the late twentieth century.  To look then at the burial practices and the physical layout of these cemeteries is to study the entire spectrum from just before the impact of the Industrial Revolution through changes it produced.

            Although writing during the 1940's, Henry Russell Hitchcock succinctly wrote about the built environment that "Functions are continually changing and the means of providing for them are also being so recurrently improved that no building, except perhaps a tomb, can remain functionally satisfactory for long."³

            Thus, by looking at the graves of a country, we see into the soul of that country.  The grand mansion may have been demolished or restored in such a "prettified" state that it resembles a dollhouse, rather than a place where people ate, slept, and died.  The grand historical event may be now marked by a stone in the middle of a busy intersection in a setting far removed in spirit from the actual event.  But, the local cemetery will likely be much the same.  Even though pollution, vandalism and other effects of time have left their mark, the cemetery is the most likely place in a community to retain its historical integrity, largely because of the modern invisible nature of death which causes no great outcry for updating such a place.

            It also remains as a place where final social comments are made as William Childress wrote in his 1989 column, The View From My Hill:

    "But to be chiseled in Stone!  Doesn't it have a solidity to it, a kind of earthly immortality--a statement, like the pyramids, that we humans will take our pride and egos into the next life, if we can?

       I don't care.  I am no fan of modesty, heavenly or otherwise.  Besides, if we have little to flaunt in life, little to excite others' envy, perhaps in our final rest we can lie smugly, secure in the knowledge that our piece of the rock is bigger than any other in the graveyard."

II.  WHY CHOOSE THE BOONSLICK FOR THIS STUDY?

            The Boonslick was the first area settled west of St. Louis in Missouri so it contains every style and type of historical object since the first American settlement of the state.  Daniel and Rebecca Boone (Boon) led several of their children and Kentucky friends to St. Louis at the invitation of the Spanish government after they lost a land fight in Kentucky.⁵   The group of Americans coming across the Mississippi River with them were men and women used to an existence of relocation.  This idea that "a rolling stone gathers no moss" soon led the Boone family to hunt up and down the Missouri River and to ferret out a salt lick in mid-Missouri on a tributary near the larger river.  For several years Nathan Morgan Boone, Daniel's son, worked the salt lick, boiling the salty water until only the salt was left and then floating the product downstream after the spring thaws.  The citizens of St. Louis were happy and eager to purchase the salt for cooking and especially for preservation of food and furs.⁶

            The fame of this mid-Missouri area spread rapidly and by 1810 people were sneaking into what was officially Indian territory, land used for hunting by the Osage Indians.⁷  As was usually the case, the Indians were pushed west and white settlers took over the fertile area.   Most of the early settlers were Southern in ancestry, attracted to the region from Kentucky and other parts of the Upper South by the fame of Daniel Boone (Boon).  The father of George Caleb Bingham, Henry Vest Bingham, made an exploratory excursion to the Boonslick in 1819 after he had gone bankrupt in Virginia.  Writing to his wife, Mary Armand Bingham, he stated that the land looked like a place of milk and honey and recommended the family move there as quickly as possible.⁸  Others took the same advice and by 1819 St. Louis newspapers stated that it looked like the entire world was going to the Boonslick.  After this famous, fertile, river area was settled, people filled in the empty spaces back toward St. Louis.⁹  The result was that unlike most areas in the United States, in Missouri the settlement patterns filled the Missouri River Valley from west to east.

            The area defined for purposes of this survey as the Boonslick is the present day three counties of Boone, Cooper and Howard.  These three counties have traditionally formed the nucleus of the Boonslick:

"Next in importance and population to the settlement of St. Louis and chronologically next to St. Charles, Femme Osage and Loutre Island, was the settlement of the above three central counties of Howard, Cooper, and Boone."¹⁰

            Howard County originally covered northern Missouri and eventually 39 counties were carved out of its original boundaries.   Although there has been great discussion over the decades as to the actual geographical boundaries of the Boonslick, the above quote by William Switzler is the earliest written statement giving the geographical meaning of the term and these three counties were thus selected for the study.

            Boone and Howard Counties are also often referred to as being part of the region called Little Dixie.   Certainly, these two counties fit the criteria for that cultural and geographical region as well.  Cooper County is not usually called part of that cultural milieu although the county seat town of Boonville has been placed in that category upon occasion.¹¹  The Boonslick is a geographical area which culturally fits well into the Little Dixie mold, so there is not a conflict, only a natural blend.

III. BURIAL SITES

            Along with settlement came death and burial grounds.  Thus, the Boonslick has burials from Missouri territorial days to the present.  Only St. Louis could hope to rival the Boonslick with the early burials, but in such a metropolitan area, cemeteries and graveyards were destroyed quickly as the city grew.  Many of the early graves are now either destroyed or removed to other cemeteries and thus not in situ.  Areas along the Mississippi River were also settled early, particularly the areas south of St. Louis such as Ste. Genevieve.  However, these regions did not provide a funnel for westward traffic later in the nineteenth century.  This flow of people brought ideas from other sections of the country and expanded the cemeteries of the Boonslick. The French did explore the Boonslick region and are commemorated with hamlets such as Chouteau Springs in Cooper County.  They did not, however, establish permanent residences and cemeteries.

            As explained below, 177 Boonslick burial grounds were surveyed.  Three major types of cemeteries used in this region:

1.  Private, family or community burial grounds.  The survey registered 19 of these in Boone county, 18 in Cooper County, and 35 in Howard County.

2.  Graveyards adjacent to churches.  The survey registered 36 of these in Boone County, 41 in Cooper County and 16 in Howard County.

3.  Cemeteries established away from religious structures and platted as a repository for the deceased.  The survey registered  9 in Boone County, 7 in Cooper County, and 8 in Howard County. 

            The Boonslick region of mid-Missouri remained agrarian until the 1960's when Columbia, Missouri, rose as a health center and a place of desirable higher education.¹²  In 1988 the Boonslick region was chosen to be the test area for the 1990 federal census since it contained all the national characteristics of the population compacted into three counties.  Boone County had boomed in growth, Cooper County remained stable in population, and Howard County suffered population loss.¹³  This lack of population growth until the late 1960's allowed the earliest burial grounds to remain in situ in many places.  (That is not to say that all are intact).  In addition, these three counties were chosen because of their closeness to the actual salt lick and its association with the Boone family, and the traditional association of them being part of the Boonslick region as shown by the above quotation.¹⁴

            The county highway maps were used for research in the three Boonslick counties of Boone, Cooper, and Howard.   (See attached county highway maps with the index in Appendix B).  234 burial places were shown on the state highway maps of these counties, 67 in Boone County, 79 in Cooper County, and 88 in Howard County.  It soon became evident that not all of these grounds were still maintained or even in existence.  Some places showed evidence of bulldozing, or feed lots destroyed burial grounds while farm machinery obliterated others.   This destruction brought the final count down to 3 fewer in Boone county, to 64, 13 fewer in Cooper County, to 66, and 29 fewer in Howard County, to 59, for a total of 177 burial sites found and visited.

            In 1938, the Lilburn Kingsbury of Howard County undertook a cemetery survey of the county for genealogical purposes.  His records show nearly 150 burial sites in Howard county many more than the 88 shown on the county highway map.¹⁵  A quick check of his data reveals that these were private burial grounds on active farms and it soon became apparent that nothing remained for comparison in the present day.  The same thing proved true in Cooper and Boone Counties.  Even many of the cemeteries marked on the highway maps were in shambles from neglect or active damage.  The State Planning Division of the Missouri Department of Highways and Transportation sent field inventory workers out to actually drive the roads and talk to the farmers when the original maps were made.  Aerial views made for later maps have revealed more burial sites.¹⁶  An attempt to find the others proved futile, so it was determined to stick to the highway maps since they seemed to contain references to cemeteries with the best possibility of still being in existence.

            The height of both professionally and artistically planned cemeteries in the United States are the great romantic, rural, park-like cemeteries.  It was about forty years after initial settlement, 1853, that the only cemetery of this type was established in the Boonslick.¹⁷   Until then burials were mostly in private, family or community burial grounds.   Church graveyards were used to some extent but really came into popularity in the later part of the nineteenth century when the idea of family, morality and religion became so infused with the Victorian sense of propriety.  This was particularly noticeable in Howard County which was the first county settled and still is the smallest in terms of population.  Here private, family burial grounds abound, with some still in active use, while others have been bulldozed, thus covering the entire spectrum.

IV. SIMILARITIES-GRID PATTERN

            With two exceptions, all the places of burial were oriented east and west.  Thus 175 cemeteries exhibited the row patterning of the traditional east and west position, including even the most Romantic of the regional cemeteries, Walnut Grove in Boonville in Cooper County (C10).   The two exceptions were St. Martin  Graveyard north of Pilot Grove (C36) and the Catholic Cemetery east of Pilot Grove (C38).  Both are Catholic cemeteries, both are in Cooper County, and  both contain first generation graves of German immigrants.   However, Boonville, county seat of Cooper County, also contains a Catholic Cemetery (C11) which uses the traditional east and west orientation and has the same ethnic background.  Research and interviews have not produced a logical reason as to why the two cemeteries in the Pilot Grove area are oriented north and south, except for the size of the rectangular plot of land being longest in that direction.¹⁸  Thus there is remarkable consistency in the physical layout of the grounds.  This is true whether the cemetery is a family burial ground, a church with adjacent graveyard, or a municipal cemetery.  The stones may be inscribed in English, German, or not at all, but the orientation is the same.

V.  SIMILARITIES--HILL LOCATION

            The cemeteries of the Boonslick were often laid out on the top of the highest available land no matter what type of cemetery category they fit.  Only the African American cemeteries do not exhibit this characteristic and since they date from after the War Between the States, their founders were forced to take whatever land they could obtain.  The result for them was the poorest land available in the three counties.  Racial prejudices no doubt played a definite role in this as well.  Different theories abound as to the reasons for preferring hilltop location.  Some scholars believe it reflects the philosophical choice as the closest point to Heaven.¹⁹  Others, of a more pragmatic nature, contend that the higher elevation meant less topsoil so the ground was less suitable for cultivation.  The higher elevation also meant the cemetery would be the most likely to escape flood waters.²⁰  The latter was not a universal association since the first settlers on the north band of the Missouri River buried their dead in the flood plain adjacent to their forts rather than upon the north bluff and the floods of the 1840's obliterated the burials.²¹  Several cemeteries were actually begun on already extant Native American mounds.  Copps Chapel (C21) and Clayton Cemetery (C15) are two such cemeteries (Illustration 1). 

VI. SIMILARITIES--PLANTINGS

            Another similarity in nearly all cemeteries is the choice of the shrubbery and flowers.  Pine trees of a mature height are found like sentinels in many of the cemeteries, their size indicating they must have been planted at the end of the nineteenth century.  Red cedar trees are also found in many of the grounds; these are native to mid-Missouri and some may have grown wild in the burial grounds no longer maintained, but most are in line with markers and show that they were purposefully planted.  An excellent example of this is Concordia Cemetery in Cooper County (C59).  Now totally deserted and unmowed, this cemetery still contains the wrought iron fence with its name on the front and a fence circumscribing the perimeter (Illustration 2).  Brush abounds once inside the fenced grounds which contrasts dramatically with the adjacent farmland planted neatly in rowcrops.  The actual cemetery is overrun with sumac, cockleburs, and thistles.   But after tramping through these obstacles, the rows of gravestones become clear because of the placement of large red cedar trees, now beyond their prime, which were obviously planted in such formations.

            Mt. Zion Methodist Church (H69) which is locally called the Stapleton burial grounds contains another example of plantings gone to rot. Burial grounds for four generations of the Stapleton family, with the last interment in 1983, the small burial ground is almost totally covered with vinca.  This plant grows rapidly and easily in the Boonslick and the Stapleton daughter-in-law, Pat, formerly an Art Professor at nearby Central Methodist, planted the vinca in the early 1960's.²²  It has in the space of 25 years totally taken over the area until it is climbing the gravestones and obscuring potential footstones, making walking dangerous.  Other cemeteries like Concordia Cemetery in rural Cooper County (C59) also contain vinca, but not in such an extreme amount.  Vinca is most evident in unkept cemeteries which have not been mowed, where the plant finds the maximum space to grow without being pruned. 

            Many of the African American cemeteries of the Boonslick have graves marked solely by perennial flowers.   Examples can be found in Log Providence Church Graveyard (B57) and Mount Nebo Cemetery (B45) in Boone county, Mt. Moriah Graveyard (C48) in Cooper County and cemeteries H80 and H88 in Howard County (Illustration 3).  Most other cemeteries that have segregated sections also contain graves in the African American section marked solely by perennial flowers.  Usually the flowers are old fashioned peonies, in either pink or white colors.  Red peonies are of later fashion and are not found in Boonslick cemeteries. 

            Another favorite planting of the Boonslick is the yucca, which was also popular over the entire country during the latter part of the nineteenth century.²³  Once again, the plant is most visible in unkept burial grounds (B35) or (H82).  These are small, family burial grounds which had not been mowed in the past year, but had received attention within the past decade, so that the brush had not encroached into the grounds and obliterated the yucca.  Confused with the Century Plant or Agave Plant of the American West, the association with a plant that supposedly lived forever accounted for its popularity.   Although a dozen metal monuments were found in the Boonslick, none of them featured a yucca spire which was a fairy common decorative motif on some of the metal monuments in other areas.²⁴

            Iris also abounded in the early burial grounds.  This perennial flower is drought resistant and is virtually impossible to kill so it was a popular choice for decorative landscaping.   Both iris and peonies tend to bloom at the end of May in the Boonslick, just in time for Memorial Day so this was a likely consideration in their selection as well.²⁵   The nationally observed Memorial Day was begun in 1868 by the Grand Army of the Republic as a Union holiday, but its founder was a Boonslick native who was impressed with Confederate Decoration Days which featured perennials.  The national holiday commemorated what was already a regional tradition.  Unlike peonies which are tuberous and tend to blow over with the first spring thunderstorm, iris withstand inclement weather and their blossoms bloom with rich colors for a couple of weeks.   Associated with the fleur de lis of France, iris we thought to be a "noble" flower.²⁶

            Certainly many of the Boonslick cemeteries were planted with perennial spring flowering bulbs as well, such as daffodils and hyacinths. At least one house in Boonville in Cooper County and two houses in Fayette in Howard County, sport daffodils each spring dug up from a local Boonslick cemetery in an effort to clean out congested beds from the grave area.²⁷   Since this Boonslick survey was conducted in the fall, it is impossible to fully know how many cemeteries have spring flowering bulbs.  Certainly, violets and wildflowers abound in some cemeteries like Walnut Grove in Boonville and finish their blooming cycle before mowing so they return from year to year in spite of the grounds being closely manicured.²⁸  One cemetery, Strickfaden Cemetery (C70), atop a bluff in rural Cooper County, was adjacent to several large clumps of prickly pear cactus which obviously grow unassisted in the pasture.²⁹

             Some graves contain low shrubbery, but this is not as common as flowers.  The shrubbery can easily obscure the gravestone, making it impossible to read and thus is not as satisfactory.  Also, as would be expected, the better mowed the cemetery, with the obvious exception of the romantic, rural, park-like Walnut Grove in Boonville, the less landscaping amenities are still in place.  Certainly, one of the barest cemeteries is the Centralia City Cemetery (B2), where all the landscaping has been removed so mowing is easily accomplished.³⁰  In the case of the Centralia Cemetery, this move was made with full community cooperation and approval until the grounds retain none of the traditional Upland South landscaping they originally featured.³¹  The more deserted the grounds and the less frequently maintained, the more likely that shrubbery of some sort remained.  Naturally, there is a fine line between intermittent maintenance and neglect.

            In addition to the plantings, most of the cemeteries had conch shells or some sort of white shells in them.   This motif combines several traditions.  Several African tribes used shells as part of their funeral practices, where the cultures included the belief that the dead became white creatures living under river beds and lake bottoms.  Thus white shells assumed a special importance.³²  Some scholars have proposed that decorating with shells comes from Europe and can be traced back to the symbol of a great Mother goddess who was worshipped under various names in ancient times.  This great female deity was variously symbolized by the shell, rose and dove.  The conch shell was especially appropriate since it assumed the shape of the female reproductive tract.  One of the duties of this great Mother goddess was to oversee the dead, and with her great powers of fertility, to see that they were reborn in the afterlife.  The Greeks and Romans used shells to adorn their tombs and the practice survived in parts of Europe.³³  Whatever the actual cultural roots for this phenomena, conch shells are found in all three Boonslick counties and in all types of cemeteries.  Unlike in other sections of the country, shells here do not appear in any type of stylistic patterning or on or beside a certain portion of the gravestone.  Rather, the presence of the shell seems to suffice, as they were found on and around the stone, on the foundations, and even attached to the stone with concrete in the cemetery at Roanoke (H5) (Illustration 4).  Some of the shells were actually constructed of concrete themselves and were not true marine vessels.  The more rural the burial, the more likely that shells would be found.

            Shells appear on markers on the graves of all ages from elderly to infants, both sexes, and all races.   The shells are also found on stones from the 1850's to the 1980's.  In several cases, it was impossible to determine of the shell was actually a decorative motif, or merely an object placed on top of a gravestone by an irritated person attempting to mow the yard and get all the impediments out of the mower's path.  At Rocky Fork Church Graveyard (B26), the irritation of the maintenance person appeared to be the definite answer since all the shells were placed on top of stones.  In no other cemetery were all the shells on top.  Rather, it was more likely that the shells would be in assorted positions.

            Plastic or silk flowers played a distinct role in the maintained cemeteries.  In some instances, these floral arrangements were the only evidence that a grave was present.  This was especially true of African American cemeteries.  An extremely popular arrangement was across with plastic flowers placed at the head of the grave.  This feature was especially dominant in the African American cemetery or portion of the burial ground.   The survey was conducted in the fall of the year, but most of the arrangements had obviously been in place since Memorial Day.  Designed to be part of the landscape from one Memorial Day to the next, many were in an excellent state of repair.  No cut flowers were seen decorating any graves unless there had been a recent burial and the flowers had been placed on top of the grave following the burial service, creating a temporary mound.  Once again, mowing made a big difference in the appearance of these arrangements.  Those which were on the ground often suffered the ravages of the mower blade with bits and pieces of plastic strewn about the grass.  As winter approached in the survey, greenery appeared in some of the larger cemeteries as winter mementos, probably deemed more appropriate to cold weather than artificial daisies. 

VII.  SIMILARITIES--GATES, FENCES AND OTHER FEATURES

            Many of the cemeteries still contained an arched entranceway, a lichgate or "corpse gate."   If the gate had been removed from the actual drive, it often had been installed in the front of the cemetery as a decorative device.  At least three cemeteries in Boone County, nine in Cooper County, and six in Howard County retain their monumental entranceways.  Of probable English origin, lichgates or "corpse gates" were a standard part of the Boonslick cemetery landscape.  Boone County contains the fewest such entrances.  Many other cemeteries in that county were graced by such entrances until well within the memory of people now living, but this county is the one which has undergone the most development.  As the population base has changed, the fancy entrance gate is often the first to disappear when the cemetery wants to install a wider road, usually paved and sometimes with curbing.  The Centralia Cemetery (B2) is again a case in point.  Even in the early 1960's, the arched entranceway remained over the main south road into the cemetery.  At the side entrance gray, Romanesque pillars with stark white ashlar caps formed two gates with no arch above.  The entire older portion of the cemetery was enclosed by a chain link fence, including the segregated section at the southeast corner.  As the years progressed and the cemetery filled up, pushing ever in a northern direction toward Missouri Highway 22, the entrance for funeral hearses became to the north off the highway.  In the late 1960's a new gateway with no arch was added to the north of the grounds and the fence and older gates were removed for ease of mowing.³⁴

            The majority of cemeteries are still enclosed by fences and it is evident that almost all were fenced at some point.  Also more numerous than originally assumed are fenced burial grounds and/or individual fenced graves within the burial grounds.  Sometimes these individual fences are so close together as to render walking between them virtually impossible (Illustration 5).  This custom is evidently from Virginia where the graveyards were usually enclosed and livestock thus was kept out of the cemetery.  In his memoirs, C. C. Bell of Boonville wrote that finding a hog rooting on his mother's grave was the impetus which led him to help form a not-for-profit corporation to oversee Walnut Grove Cemetery (C10).³⁵

            These fenced, individual lots can also be extremely elaborate.  The height of this type of fencing is at Washington Cemetery in Glasgow (H47) in Howard County around the lot of the Southworth Family.  The first members of the family to arrive in the area were a doctor and spouse; he was a native of New York.  They purchased an elaborate Gothic entranceway made out of iron with a Gothic arched gate and weeping willow, metal medallions inset into the iron fence at regular intervals (Illustration 6 and Illustration 7).   Medieval-inspired tracery in the iron fence gives the entire lot a Romantic effect.   The medallions and the pointed spires on the top of the gateposts are painted silver, while the rest of the fence is black.  Whether this was the original color scheme is not known.

               Although gravesheds or gravehouses are often mentioned in scholarly literature with lichgates and fences, none were found extant in the Boonslick.  This is most interesting, since gravesheds are a characteristic of Upland Southern burials and the Boonslick conforms to this type of burial in every other category.  Gravesheds or gravehouses are diminutive roofed structures, their sides either open or partially enclosed by pickets or lattices, covering normal in-ground burials.  It has been documented that gravesheds still exist in Audrain County, Missouri, the county adjacent on the northeast to Boone County.³⁶  Since 177 cemeteries were surveyed and the grounds found in all states of care, surely some vestiges of gravesheds would have been found if they had been used in the Boonslick.  Audrain County is part of the region called Little Dixie which also includes Boone and Howard and the cultural heritage is so similar that the absence of gravesheds seems doubly unusual.  No explanation has been found. 

      A few cemeteries retain items no longer used or not usually found in a cemetery.  Walnut Grove Cemetery in Boonville (C10) still has the hitching posts for twenty four horses and three watering tanks for the horses.  It also features modern restrooms.  The Masonic Cemetery in Bunceton (C78) has a well with an antique pump (Illustration 8).  Sharon Bible Church Cemetery in Howard County (H2) has a mailbox inside the cemetery grounds, certainly the most unusual and optimistic item encountered (illustration_9)  A few cemeteries such as Friendship Baptist Graveyard (H35) or Salt Fork Presbyterian Graveyard (C4) still have intact concrete church steps even though the building is long gone (Illustration_10).  Although not exactly in the category of fencing and gates, many cemeteries have physical features that were another element of the landscape.   Wrought iron benches and classical urns could be found in many of the lots as well as concrete or stone lot markers, giving the lot dimensions.  Some of these boundary markers were inscribed with the initials of the family, usually being the initials of the patriarch who originally purchased the lot although several generations might be buried within.  This practice comes into play in the last fifteen years of the nineteenth century.  Only one grave was found that was individually curbed. It was in Washington Cemetery in Glasgow (H47) which had a large German immigration beginning in the mid-nineteenth century  (illustration_11)             Although the burials were consistently of east and west orientation, great variety existed in the style and placement of the gravestone and the mounding or lack of such at the grave site.   No one style of placement or decoration was uniform over the entire Boonslick region and many cemeteries had different styles within the same ground.  Some gravestones faced east, while others faced west.  Some families preferred individual markers while other families desired the married couple to share a double monument.   There seems to be definite chronological preferences that accord to taste, but other preferences seem to have been based upon individual taste rather than any real or subconscious cultural element coming into play.

            Terry Jordan in Texas Graveyard observes that the average person of Upland Southern ancestry exists in a world where the imprint of Africa and Native Americans was closer than realized or desired.³⁷  At least in the cultural sense, the three racial groups share much common ground.  Certainly, the cemeteries of the Boonslick combine many of these elements in the continued westward migration and settlement of those who peopled the area and continue to populate it.

ENDNOTES

             ¹Aries, Philippe, The Hour of Our Death (New York:   Alfred A. Knopf, 1981), p. 570.

            ²Aries, p. 597.

            ³Hitchcock, Henry Russell, Painting Toward Architecture (New York:  Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1948), p. 15.

            ⁴Childress, William, "The View From My Hill,"  Columbia Tribune, December 14, 1988.

            ⁵Meyer, Duane, The Heritage of Missouri (St. Louis:   State Publishing Co., Inc., 1970), p. 103.

            ⁶Information from the files of the Boone's Salt Lick State Park, headquartered in Arrow Rock, Missouri.

            ⁷Dyer, Robert L., Boonville, An Illustrated History (Boonville, Missouri:  Pekitanoui Publications, 1987), p.11.

            ⁸Information obtained from Stephens Museum at Central Methodist College in Fayette, Missouri.

            ⁹Meyer, Duane, p. 137.

           ¹⁰Switzler,Col. W. F., Illustrated History of Missouri from 1541 to 1877 (St. Louis:  C. R. Barnes, 1879), p. 178.

            ¹¹Lutz, Paul and Utermoehlen, Ralph, Mid-Missouri Regional Profile (Columbia:  Extension Division, 1973), p. 4.

            ¹²Ibid, p. 106.

            ¹³Information from Census Bureau located in Parkade Plaza Shopping Center in Columbia, Missouri,

December 4, 1988.

            ¹⁴Switzler, p. 178.

            ¹⁵Map of Howard County cemeteries in the Archives of the Friends of Historic Boonville in Boonville, Missouri.

            ¹⁶Interview with Wayne Muir, head of District 5 of the Missouri State Highway Department in December 1988.

            ¹⁷Cemetery records in the Archives of Walnut Grove Cemetery in Boonville, Missouri.

            ¹⁸Interview with Monseigneur John Dreisnor of Boonville, Missouri, on January 3, 1989.

            ¹⁹Meyer, Richard, editor, Cemeteries and Gravemarkers, Voices of American Culture (Ann Arbor:  UMI Research Press, 1989), p. 109.

            ²⁰Ibid, p. 110.

            ²¹Inventory sheet of the gravestone of Sarshal Cooper at the Stephens Museum at Central Methodist College, Fayette, Missouri.

            ²²Interview with Pat Stapleton on May 10, 1982.

            ²³Meyer, Richard, p. 278

            ²⁴Ibid, p. 279.

            ²⁵Information from the Cooper County Cemetery Association Records Collected by Estelle Snow of Bunceton, Cooper  County, Missouri.  Information now stored in the Cooper County Courthouse.

            ²⁶Op cit., p. 280.

            ²⁷Interview with Flora Patrick of Fayette, Missouri, in the summer of 1977 when she gave the bulbs to Maryellen McVicker.

            ²⁸Interview with John Hulbert, Superintendent, of Walnut Grove Cemetery in Boonville, Missouri, on October 12, 1988.

            ²⁹Interview with Judy Shields, Administrator, of the Friends of Historic Boonville in Boonville, Missouri, on

October 15, 1988.

            ³⁰Interview with Don Milton Harshbarger of Centralia, Missouri, on January 13, 1989.

            ³¹Family scrapbook in the possession of Don Milton Harshbarger of Centralia, Missouri.

            ³²Jordan, Terry, Texas Graveyards, a Cultural Legacy (Austin:  University of Texas Press, 1982), p. 21.

            ³³Ibid, p. 25.

            ³⁴Interview with Marian Kinkead of the Centralia Cemetery Association, on August 6, 1987.

            ³⁵Letter written by C. C. Bell in the Archives of Walnut Grove Cemetery in Boonville, Missouri.

            ³⁶Jordan, p. 37.

            ³⁷Ibid, p. 39

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