The following teaser is from the May 13, 2013 edition of thestate.com:
A preliminary survey underwritten by Richland County [South Carolina] has identified more than 450 cemeteries, most of them long-abandoned plots where family members were laid to rest together.
Next, Mike Trinkley of the nonprofit Chicora Foundation will embark on field work to refine the list by photographing the cemeteries, counting markers and developing a county map of the 463 cemeteries – equivalent to one cemetery for every 1.6-square miles of land.
Experts in Southern culture say the large number of burial sites scattered outside church yards here speaks to Southerners’ connections to their families and their land, a desire to stake an eternal claim to one’s home place.
“There’s a long tradition of annual gathering on Decoration Day to clean up graveyards, and a famous blues song by Blind Lemon Jefferson has the title ‘See That My Grave is Swept Clean,’” said Bill Ferris, a history and folklore professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“People are fearsome that when they die, their graves will be neglected and overgrown and totally wiped out, which is often, sadly, the case.”
