Thank you Bob for volunteering to be our chauffeur and I hope the red dirt eventually comes out of your car! We stayed with Norma Wilkinson at the Oaklea Mansion and after many stays at Oaklea, we were in the "big house" for the first time. We had an interesting room with LOTS of angels everywhere and a wonderful 2nd story porch where we enjoyed the afternoon. The weather was great - Praise the Lord!
I've scanned in the cover of the program so everyone can see a photo of Mr. Potter ... double click this or any image for a full size view.
The Shireys also had a family photo from 1910 that included Ruth's mother - Eliza Jane Potter - and put together a very brief history, shown here:
There were a surprising number of guests and Jerry and Norma were able to visit with Betty and her family before the event kicked off
I don't know the significance of each of the Civil War flags, but there were a number of them. What I've learned from a quick online search is that the flag commonly known as the "Confederate Flag" is actually the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Confederate National Flag, also known as the "Stars and Bars", was similar in layout to the current US flag, but featured a circle of seven stars in the blue area and only three stripes - two red and one white. I didn't see anything that referenced the versions with large areas of white.
At 10am, the Sons of Confederate Veterans marched through the gates of Shady Grove
... and over to John Potter's grave
The "soldiers" were closely followed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Order of the Confederate Rose
There was music and a variety of short writings/poems read during the ceremony
A wreath of white roses was placed beside Mr. Potter's grave,
followed by each Daughter of the Confederacy placing a red rose on the marker.
Then there was an impressive series of musket shots fired that filled the air with shotgun smoke. Not all of the antique weapons fired on time, but it was cool anyway.
The date of birth on John Potter's original marker is incorrect - it says 1857, but he was actually born in 1847
... as indicated on the new marker.
Along side the small confederate flag, the wreath also bears the second "National Flag" of the Republic of Texas, which was said to represent the theme of Texas as an independent nation (lone star). Our current Texas flag was not designed and adopted until 1839.
It's odd to post a photo of grave markers on a blog, but we wanted to document the lifespan of Ruth's mother's two sisters, who are also buried at Shady Grove.
Ruth's Aunt Della ...
Ruth's Aunt Donie ...
Wide view ...
They mentioned that William Albert Potter was buried at the Sharon Cemetary, but we weren't aware of the connection while we were there on Friday afternoon.
Of course, if there's an animal in sight I'm going to interact with it and Bob was a good sport about stopping TWICE to let me pet these horses. On Saturday morning I fed them a few ginger snaps and the big one became a fast fan. If another black Lexus turns down that road they'd better have a supply of ginger snaps or they may have a horse blockade to deal with!
The little paint only got two cookies because the big red one was such a hog!
It was a quick trip with many, many hours in the car, but we had a good time and it was good to go back and to help Norma put new flowers on Ruth and Aubrey's grave, along with all the graves we used to visit with her years ago.
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