Week 11 – #17. Gate

October 17, 2015 by tnwaltz 10 Comments

I love exploring areas where I have never been and finding pieces of history. Early one August morning while in Chattanooga surrounded by thick fog, I was on Skull Island on the banks of the Tennessee River and discovered an old family cemetery surrounded by a broken down fence and a rusty, deteriorating gate. Barely visible on the gate was the name, Eva Norman. As I wandered around in the ankle-thick overgrowth, I found her headstone on which was etched her birth as 05/28/1854 and death as 10/31/1895. In researching the cemetery, I learned that it was relocated to Skull Island prior to TVA flooding its location in preparation for construction of the Chickamauga Dam. Many headstones contained birth/death dates in the 1800’s but many had not stood the test of time and the names and dates had disappeared long ago. I can only hope that one day a member of the Norman family will appear and give the cemetery back its dignity.