Showing posts with label What fun to remember the Patton Farm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label What fun to remember the Patton Farm. Show all posts

Friday, November 30, 2007

A FAMILY AFFAIR


Three brothers, Leonard, Talmedge, Robert
What a family get-together. The Oakleys and the Pattons. When little Oakley
was a baby.

<> Abbey today at 16 with her sister, Audrey, 18 on left What a happy mother and family the night


Abbey arrived at Nashville airport!
Uncle Leonard was there, with his wife. >>

The new Mom could not wait to put her new
clothes on her.

<< Dad and Gerry at Falls, Monteagle




Johnnie, Dad and Mum on Falls porch>>



Dad with his sister, Phyllis and her husband. Bob.

Not too often, but occasionally, I pause for a moment at the

top of the hill leading to beautiful Jones Hill Cemetery, where

my husband is buried. It is always quite and peaceful. I am

sure that "lovely" is also the right word, although it seems an

odd term for the place so closely associated with the sadness

of death. Beyond the entrance, a pebble path leads around

the back of the cemetery to five small pebble paths leading

through the stones. Usually I find one just right to park beside

the gravestones of my precious mate of 63 years and also the

gravestone of my daughter, Betty. While some of the graves

are remembered with bunches of flowers, I notice one grave is

always permanently covered with heather, and another has its

own blanket of deep purple petunias and white snap-dragons.

As I examine this grave I find it is the grave of a young 16 year

old boy, killed in a car accident. He was a Watertown Purple

Tiger. I think about his parents...........Gone at 16...........I had my

daughter until she was 56. I find Leonard's mother, father, aunt,

uncle, his brother-in-law and Betty Patton Willard on those

stones in our section. I find my name on his stone, my son-in-

law on Betty's, my sister-in-law on her husbands stone.

I don't stay long, change the flowers, express my love, and

start back down that hill. I never visit there without thinking

of the final moment that Leonard slipped into the presence

of the Lord. What an odd moment, almost like an out of body

experience. I did not know then but I know now I was meant

to have the experience of almost literally seeing him being

lifted from that bed and ascending into heaven. Our names

are there, however that is not where we will rest content,

but in the shadow of his sheltering wings, where there will be

no remberance of things past-----only sublime loveliness

forever and ever. The 8th will mark the second anniversary

of his death, it seems like yesterday. In his life was hope,

beauty and loveliness- - - - -WAP