Mary Caroline Gudger Moore
"Directions for My Funeral"
  By Mrs. Mary Gudger Moore
Mooremount, June 7, 1917
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1		 I commend my body to the dust and my spirit to God who gave it.  I wish to be laid to rest, when my life work is over, beside my husband in the cemetary at Oak Forest Presbyterian Church at Sand Hill amid all of the beautiful things of nature - the blue skies, the grand forests, the lovely flowers - and where the birds can sing a glad anthem over my grave every morning.

The pastor of the church, whoever he may be, can conduct my funeral service assisted by anyone he or my children wish to invite.  he can ready the Nintieth Psalm and some or all of the Twenty-first and second chapters of Revelation, and then use as a text for the remarks he may make, the thirteenth verse of the twelfth chapter of the prophet Daniel.

I do not wish any elaborate sermon preached over me or any great econium passed upon my life or character.  I have lived my life in the two Hominy Valleys and hope it is an open epistle known and read of all men and needs no comment or commendation.  I trust the evil I have done will be buried with me in the tomb  and the good I have done, if any, may live in the lives of others and go down through all of the ages till it touches the fartherest shores of time and my memory to be kept green and fresh in the hearts of the children I have gathered about me wherever I have been and told pretty stories.

The church choir can render the music and sing the following hymns when called upon:  "One Sweetly Solemn Thought", "Nearer My God to Thee", "Lead Kindly Light" and "They are Calling, Sweetly Calling."  At the conclusion of the service in the church I want the Minister to read Tennyson's hymn "Crossing the Bar."

I do not want any expensive flowers laid upon my grave, only a spray of wild flowers and a handful of ever-greens.  During my long illness my friends have brightened my room and my life with the beautiful flowers they have sent me and by their many acts of kindness and tender loving ministrations that have helped me to bear my long afflictions.  Flowers above my grave can touch no answering

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2		 chord in the still heart beneath the sod.

If it will be agreeable with my children and not any pain to them in after life, I would rather not have a hearse to take me to the cemetery, but would prefer that my friends who have known me so long would bury me rather than strangers.  My son-in-law, T. P. Gaston, has often driven me to church in his private conveyance and carried me in his arms or in my invalid chair into the church and he will do so again at my request.  I appoint the following friends of mine as my pall-bearers:  T. P. Gaston, William Fletcher,  Clarance Gaston, James G. Rice, Church Crowell and Charles Tennant.

When the last sad rite has been performed at the grave and Mother Earth has folded her mantle over me, I want the Doxology "Praise God from whom al blessing flow" sung over me and the congregation to disperse quietly and leave me along with God.  "May the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus, our dear Lord and Savior. Amen."