Title

Creator

Subject

Subject

Keyword: cemeteries ; burial customs ; undertakers

Description

Publisher

D. H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville, NC, 28804

Contributor

Date

Electronic Record Issued: 2001-07-30

Type

Sound ; Text

Format

Identifier

Source

South Asheville Colored Cemetery Oral History Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville 28804

Language

English

Relation

Coverage

Acquisition

Donor number: 138 ;  Date of acquisition: 1990-05-02

Processed By

Interview Date

Avery, George
Hunter, John
Miller, Delia
Miller, Ed
Miller, James (Jim) Vester 
Miller, Louisa
Murrough, Noah
Riverside Cemetery
St. Matthias Church
Violet Hill Cemetery

Abstract:

DEE: Good morning Mrs. Bolden, how are you this morning?

MRS. BOLDEN: I'm fine Dee.  I'm 94 years old, will be 95 in six months. I was walking and working up until I fell and broke my hip, but I'm doing fine now, and I'm glad to see you. I love to talk to people, but I don't say anything bad about anybody, because I love people, so just ask me anything and if I know about them, I'll tell you, and if I don't know about them, I can't tell you. All I have are my memories, and I love to talk about the old times.

DEE: Well, that's wonderful, Mrs. Bolden, that you are so spry and alert at your age. Mrs. Bolden, I understand that you have relatives buried out there in the South Asheville Colored Cemetery.  Could you tell us a little something about your relatives buried out there?

MRS. BOLDEN: Yes, Dee, I have five relatives buried out there: my grandmother, Louisa Miller, that was my father's mother; my aunt, Delia Miller, that was my father's sister; and three of my father's brothers.

DEE: Well tell us a little something about your grandmother, your aunt and your uncles, Mrs. Bolden.  We would like to know something about them, who these people were and what they did.

MRS. BOLDEN: Well Dee, my father, Jim Miller [James Vester Miller], was a white man, born out of slavery.   His mother, my grandmother, was a slave for some white people down in Rutherford County before she came here. She had three children when she came here, three white children; my father, his sister Delia, and one brother, Lee. Then after Freedom, she came here, and she married and had three more children, my father's other three black brothers, they were brown-skinned. I have a pictures of them here (showing Dee pictures); this picture is over a hundred years old. That's my father, his white brother, Lee and his white sister, Delia. My father was a brick layer, and he was very active in the church.   He was an officer in the St. Matthias Church. We were all brought up in the Episcopalian faith. Aunt Delia owned and operated a second-hand clothing store. The last one was over there off of Montford Avenue, in that area of town. She loved people and got along with everybody, she was a lovely person, and she did well in her little business. She had one child, a son, Willie.  He died before she did.

DEE: I've been out to the cemetery and saw your Grandmother's head stone out there. Do you remember what it looked like?

MRS. BOLDEN: Yes, I remember very well what it looked like. It was a beautiful headstone with praying hands. There used to be three headstones out there.  We had a plot.  It was fenced in at one time.  My grandmother had a headstone, my aunt Delia had a headstone and there was one head stone for the three black uncles. I don't know why they had one headstone for all three of them.  They didn't all die at the same time.

DEE: Well Mrs. Bolden, I'm proud to tell you that your grandmother's beautiful headstone is still standing today.

MRS. BOLDEN: That's good news, Dee, that's wonderful. You know that headstone is 87 years old, but you know, I haven't been out there in years.  The last time I was out there, I was the acting secretary for the missionary convention, and there was a meeting at the church, so a few of the other ladies and I walked over to the grave yard. It was all grown over with weeds and it was in bad shape, so we were walking around out there and we heard what sounded like a whistling sound, and one of the ladies said, "Ladies let's go fast, that's the whistle of a rattlesnake, I've heard it before," and we flew (laughs), and I haven't been back out there since.

DEE: Mrs. Bolden, who took care of the graveyard and graves out there in the South Asheville Colored Cemetery?

MRS. BOLDEN: Well, Dee, as I recall, I believe it was the responsibility of the family to keep their own plot cleaned up, because I can remember my father going out there and cleaning our plot up himself, or taking some men with him to help him, either a friend or pay someone to help.  Yes, because I remember one time some of the people over there told him that some of the graves over there was sinking in, and he paid some men to go over there and help him fill them in and clean up.

DEE: I've been told that Mr. George Avery had a hand in caring for the cemetery.   Do you remember anything about that?

MRS. BOLDEN: Yes, Mr. Avery was a gravedigger over there, and he would clean up around your family plot, but you had to pay him or you could do it yourself. You could dig your own deceased family members grave yourself, you and some of your friends. People used to work more out of love then than they do now.  People don't care now, and you and your friends kept up the plot, or like I said you could pay somebody do it for you.  In 1917 during the flu epidemic when they were burying at least five people a day out there in the South Asheville Cemetery, the kin people buried their own then, and friends got together and buried their own, not for money but out of love and friendship.

DEE: Mrs. Bolden, do you know of anyone else other than your own kin that are buried out there in the South Asheville Colored Cemetery?

MRS. BOLDEN: Yes, I remember the Hunters.  Mr. John Hunter and his wife are buried out there. I remember them because they were good friends of my brother, Ed Miller. Mr. Hunter was buried out there after the Cemetery was closed, because his wife was buried out there already. They had three boys. After Mr. Hunter died, all three of those boys left here and went to Cincinnati.

DEE: Mrs. Bolden, was there any other cemetery where blacks could be buried back then?

MRS. BOLDEN: No, honey, there was only church cemeteries. South Asheville was for a long time the only community cemetery, before Violet Hill. My brother, the doctor, and my father started up that cemetery. Violet Hill is named after my mother, Violet Hill Miller. It was established in 1935. My father wanted to move his kin to Violet Hill after it opened, but my mother didn't agree because they had been in the ground too long, and she didn't want to disturb them. Now back then Riverside was the only white cemetery that would bury blacks, but they put all the blacks down on the back side of the cemetery.

DEE: Who were the undertakers for blacks back then, Mrs. Bolden?  Were there any black undertakers here in Asheville?

MRS. BOLDEN: No, honey, just white undertakers. There was one white undertaker that would take blacks, and that was Mr. Starnes. His place of business was between the square and Eagle Street, on South Main. I remember when my grandmother died, my father had just built us a new house in 1900, and my grandmother came to live with us. She died not long after we moved, she died in 1902.  She died of the pneumonia.  I didn't get to go to her funeral because I had caught the pneumonia from her, but I remember lifting up from my bed and seeing Mr. Starnes taking her casket away for the funeral. They used to bring the deceased body in the casket to the house back then, you know. Then Mr. Noah Murrough came here. Mr. Noah Murrough was the first black undertaker to come to Asheville.

DEE: Mrs. Bolden, why did they stop burying in the South Asheville Colored Cemetery?

MRS. BOLDEN: Well Dee, I don't know exactly.  All I know is that the city had something to do with the closing, but I don't know why.

DEE: Mrs. Bolden, you have given us some invaluable information here today, and I want to say thank you.  Thank You, Mrs. Bolden.