Lookin' For Harvey

My husband always talks about these great family vacations he went on as a child. The Grand Canyon, Disney land, Canada......... Not my family. We had the same vacation every year, year after year. The big family reunion in east Texas. But, I am certain our vacations were better than his. As a small child I adored my grandparents, and loved being in their home in Cumby Texas. Cumby is a pretty little town in north east Texas, with tall trees and black dirt.
I talked Jon and Lauren into taking a little side trip to Cumby a few years ago when we were moving her to Durant for school. I had not been there since I was about eight years old but it looked exactly like remembered. I think I even found my grandparents house.
After that, we took another side trip to Achelie Oklahoma. One of my uncles told me, that was where I would find my grandfather's grandfather's grave. His name was Harvey Bacon and he was a missionary to the Chickasaw Indians. We had our directions but we weren't getting anywhere, so we asked a couple of different people in town and they said "oh you're lookin for the reverend." like they knew who he was. So our directions took us across a cow pasture in the middle of nowhere to this group of trees surrounded by an old wrought iron fence. We got out of the car climbed over the fence and everything changed. It was an old grave yard just like in the movies. The trees were so overgrown there was barely any light, and the grass was like thick yellow straw. There was something moving under the grass, and we joked that it was probably chiggers. My uncle had told me to look in the center of the cemetery for the biggest tombstone and that would be Harvey. But Harvey's tombstone had been stolen and was replaced by a newer and smaller one. That was disappointing, and really who would steal a tombstone? Any way right next to it was Frances Bacon, his daughter in law and the woman who raised my grandfather. His wife, my great great grandmother was not buried there. This cemetery was for whites only, and she was a Chickasaw, as were their children. What a crazy world. Anyway it was fun and scary and we had a great time. Time spent with Lauren I will never forget. One more thing. We had so many chigger bites, Lauren and I both ran fever that night. You don't joke around about east Texas chiggers. I'm just sayin.....