Now that the clearing has been done for Pruitts new store, I have been asked about the cemetery that has been exposed. I found it about eight or nine years ago. Mr. Green, my trusty friend, told me there was an old cemetery in behind the roadside park on 19, south of Cumming. I don't know if you remember what a jumble of woods and brush piles were there, but they were worse down in them, than they looked from the road.
Mother and I set out rather chipper that morning with Susan, who had not started school then. We stopped and bought some chili hot dogs and milk shakes which we sat down at the table in the roadside park to eat. Suddenly we heard a rather aggressive meowing, but not loud. We all agreed we heard a kitty. About that time it came down the tree from above us, half-starved and we fed it. Well, nothing would do but we take it home, so putting it in charge of Susan, Mother and I tried to find the cemetery. After a lot of rummaging around through the brush, we couldn't and quit the day, and I went back for different directions.
A few days later we tried it again, after school and my two oldest children went along. Nothing would do Susan, but that she showed her brother where she had found her kitty, now named Tiger. She hauled him off to show him the tree while the rest of us were pushing back and forth through the brush and they came back with another kitten, almost identical to the first except that he had been chewed up, probably by a tom cat. The search halted for that day while I took the kitten to the vet and a couple of days later, Tigger joined the family at home.
The cats were a joy to the family for along time. Tigger had to be put to sleep finally for some kidney problems. Tiger lasted until the bad ice storm this past winter. He came in the house just before it started and seemed fine. The second night he was real sick. We had no power but the phone was working. I called my vet and asked him if I could get to the main road would he meet me and he said yes. I told him I would call him when I got that far. We decided to take the little car instead of the truck which was good because we had to go under a tree that was across the road and it cleared the top of the car about three or four inches. Tiger made it to the vet and I wish I could say he made it, but it wasn't meant to be.
The story of Susan and I getting home, and the tree had come down on the road by then, well that's another two or three pages for another time.
Additional Comment
Gladston Roe Green was a friend of mine. He told me he never lived more than two miles from the courthouse in his life. He was a wealth of information on this county. He helped me locate abandoned family cemeteries. He told stories of Cumming when he was a boy.
One of the family cemeteries Green helped me find was the Estes - Foster. This is located on the Old Atlanta road going south just before you reach the shopping center on the left hand of the road. Green said his grandfather lived in the farm house straight across the road. When he was a lad he remembered the militia bringing prisoners to Cumming to stand trail. He said they camped across from his grandfather's house there for the night. Being nervous of people attacking their prisoners, they posted sentries. During the night one of the guards thought they saw someone moving around in the trees and blasted away with his gun. That's why some of the stones are damaged the way they are. He shot the ball off the top of a high pedestal stone. If it had been someone, he would have been minus one head.