Tend the graves, but also preserve the stories of those lying in them

I remember Memorial Day 1977. It was hot, and my mother's people piled into their cars and headed out to pull weeds and clean off the graves at the old Mt. Olive Hills Cemetery. It was still customary then for families to take turns cleaning up their ancestral graveyards. Today Mt. Olive Cemetery is dwarfed by new development. But 30 years ago that ancient burial ground off Maryland Rte. 31, between New Windsor and Libertytown, was in the woods, and with my citified self I recall being terrified that I'd be bitten by a snake. Needless to say, I didn't do much grave-cleaning, but I walked the grounds reading tombstones and taking pictures, including the one to the right of my great Uncle Howard Brown, my grandfather's younger brother. My mother's sister, Aunt Eloise, is buried in Mt. Olive Hills. Her son, Charles Hollingsworth, lives nearby, and recently shared with me some of his recollections of the cemetery and the long-since disappeared Mt. Olive Hills United Methodist Church that our family attended for years. Full Story: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060525/COLUMNISTS09/605250351