Today I'm going to try to get into the Lake Providence Edmondson Cemetery. When Miss Willie Davis deeded the cemetery to a group of cemetery trustees, she said there should always be a way into the cemetery from Edmondson Pike. As far as I can tell, there is not.

The trustees Ms. Davis deeded the cemetery to were Alfred Whitlow, Moses Whitlow, and Moses Goen. There were quite a few Whitlows in the Edmondson Cemetery and many, many Goens, so it makes sense that these are the names of the people who wanted to ensure its well-being.

But here's the thing I just can't quite accept. The Whitlows were William Edmondson's cousins. William made Alfred's wife's headstone, which was in that cemetery until the Whitlows gifted it to Cheekwood. William's dad's name was Orange. He had a sister named Sarah.

There's a Sarah Edmondson in the Edmondson cemetery. She had a brother named William and another brother named Green. I can't find any ties between the Green Edmondson family and the Orange Edmondson family.

But how can that be?! It makes me so aggravated. Edmondson is not a common last name. I could see if Will Smith's cousin somehow ended up trustee of a Smith cemetery full of Smiths who were not related to Will. That could happen.

But Orange Edmondson's nephew ends up the trustee of Green Edmondson's cemetery and that's just a coincidence?!

I mean, as far as I can tell, it is. But it makes me nuts.

As a side note we can file under "Uncomfortable things we just have to sit with": A lot of people are uncomfortable with museums having and showing gravestones. I think the Whitlow cases is a little different because that family gave the headstone to Cheekwood.

If this is what the family wants, we should respect it. But I'm also very certain that I'm not going to find any headstones left in the Edmondson cemetery. Leaving them in place means losing them. Which, if that's the wishes of families--that these memorials should crumble with

time--then I also think we should respect that. But in Middle Tennessee, I just see over and over again how so many of these Black cemeteries are cut off from easy access and then talked about like they've been abandoned.

But when I look at the names of the people in the Edmondson graveyard, I see family names that are in other still-cared-for cemeteries. Tennie Kinnard is in that cemetery. Kinnard graves are tended and visited in other cemeteries.

There are pastors in that cemetery! You think there's no one at Lake Providence Missionary Baptist Church who wouldn't care for their own pastors' graves? And there are Owen(s) in there. The Owen/Owens family has been working its butt off getting their family graveyard restored.

I can't speak to every family in the Edmondson cemetery, but the names I recognize are not names of people whose families don't care about their dead. I just don't believe this cemetery was abandoned. I think folks were cut off from it so that their day-to-day ties to it would

be broken and it then could be declared abandoned. Who puts up the fences matters.