Judgment Day
This story was written by Mrs. J. E. Balentine following an interview with Thomas E. Barrett, who described the tragic death of his mother, Georgia Odella Barrett in 1893 and his young brother, Nay, who is also buried here.
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Early one morning in the summer of 1967, two elderly couples drove up and a man in his seventies got out of a car. He knocked at the door of our farmhouse.
"Would you mind if I walked around and looked at the old place here? You see my father built that old storm cellar below your barn ….Did you know that my mother was killed here?"
I told him I would be delighted to have him go over the place if he would but wait until I called the family so everyone could go and hear his story.
We journeyed with him back through time and space to 1893 when his father, Robert E. Lee Barrett, a stone cutter, had built the strong rock cellar.
Laughingly his father had told them as he built it, that it would last until Judgment Day.
As we walked down through our pasture, he continued, "It was right about here, where our old house stood. Mother, a young woman of twenty-four, had just finished cooking dinner. She took me, a little four year old boy, by the hand. Strange, it seems only yesterday. We walked right up through here where my father was quarrying rocks."
We, silently, trudged along in our pasture straining to hear his words on this hot August morning.
"Mother and I stopped about here. She was holding my hand. Then she told Father to come to dinner.
About that time the guywire, which held the hoist that lifted the rocks, snapped. Mother was knocked down and pinned to the ground."
Time had ceased, as we relived the actual moment of horror and sorrow with this little lost boy of four, who had one moment held security and the next become totally lost to oblivion.
His father worked vainly to free his young wife and mother, whose life had already ceased from a broken neck.
Tears and sobs were as real as they must have been earlier; for the elderly man reliving the loss of his mother so near the Judgment Day Storm Cellar.
This story was written by Mrs. J. E. Balentine following an interview with Thomas E. Barrett, who described the tragic death of his mother, Georgia Odella Barrett in 1893 and his young brother, Nay, who is also buried here.
************************
Early one morning in the summer of 1967, two elderly couples drove up and a man in his seventies got out of a car. He knocked at the door of our farmhouse.
"Would you mind if I walked around and looked at the old place here? You see my father built that old storm cellar below your barn ….Did you know that my mother was killed here?"
I told him I would be delighted to have him go over the place if he would but wait until I called the family so everyone could go and hear his story.
We journeyed with him back through time and space to 1893 when his father, Robert E. Lee Barrett, a stone cutter, had built the strong rock cellar.
Laughingly his father had told them as he built it, that it would last until Judgment Day.
As we walked down through our pasture, he continued, "It was right about here, where our old house stood. Mother, a young woman of twenty-four, had just finished cooking dinner. She took me, a little four year old boy, by the hand. Strange, it seems only yesterday. We walked right up through here where my father was quarrying rocks."
We, silently, trudged along in our pasture straining to hear his words on this hot August morning.
"Mother and I stopped about here. She was holding my hand. Then she told Father to come to dinner.
About that time the guywire, which held the hoist that lifted the rocks, snapped. Mother was knocked down and pinned to the ground."
Time had ceased, as we relived the actual moment of horror and sorrow with this little lost boy of four, who had one moment held security and the next become totally lost to oblivion.
His father worked vainly to free his young wife and mother, whose life had already ceased from a broken neck.
Tears and sobs were as real as they must have been earlier; for the elderly man reliving the loss of his mother so near the Judgment Day Storm Cellar.
Judgment Day
This story was written by Mrs. J. E. Balentine following an interview with Thomas E. Barrett, who described the tragic death of his mother, Georgia Odella Barrett in 1893 and his young brother, Nay, who is also buried here.
************************
Early one morning in the summer of 1967, two elderly couples drove up and a man in his seventies got out of a car. He knocked at the door of our farmhouse.
"Would you mind if I walked around and looked at the old place here? You see my father built that old storm cellar below your barn ….Did you know that my mother was killed here?"
I told him I would be delighted to have him go over the place if he would but wait until I called the family so everyone could go and hear his story.
We journeyed with him back through time and space to 1893 when his father, Robert E. Lee Barrett, a stone cutter, had built the strong rock cellar.
Laughingly his father had told them as he built it, that it would last until Judgment Day.
As we walked down through our pasture, he continued, "It was right about here, where our old house stood. Mother, a young woman of twenty-four, had just finished cooking dinner. She took me, a little four year old boy, by the hand. Strange, it seems only yesterday. We walked right up through here where my father was quarrying rocks."
We, silently, trudged along in our pasture straining to hear his words on this hot August morning.
"Mother and I stopped about here. She was holding my hand. Then she told Father to come to dinner.
About that time the guywire, which held the hoist that lifted the rocks, snapped. Mother was knocked down and pinned to the ground."
Time had ceased, as we relived the actual moment of horror and sorrow with this little lost boy of four, who had one moment held security and the next become totally lost to oblivion.
His father worked vainly to free his young wife and mother, whose life had already ceased from a broken neck.
Tears and sobs were as real as they must have been earlier; for the elderly man reliving the loss of his mother so near the Judgment Day Storm Cellar.
This story was written by Mrs. J. E. Balentine following an interview with Thomas E. Barrett, who described the tragic death of his mother, Georgia Odella Barrett in 1893 and his young brother, Nay, who is also buried here.
************************
Early one morning in the summer of 1967, two elderly couples drove up and a man in his seventies got out of a car. He knocked at the door of our farmhouse.
"Would you mind if I walked around and looked at the old place here? You see my father built that old storm cellar below your barn ….Did you know that my mother was killed here?"
I told him I would be delighted to have him go over the place if he would but wait until I called the family so everyone could go and hear his story.
We journeyed with him back through time and space to 1893 when his father, Robert E. Lee Barrett, a stone cutter, had built the strong rock cellar.
Laughingly his father had told them as he built it, that it would last until Judgment Day.
As we walked down through our pasture, he continued, "It was right about here, where our old house stood. Mother, a young woman of twenty-four, had just finished cooking dinner. She took me, a little four year old boy, by the hand. Strange, it seems only yesterday. We walked right up through here where my father was quarrying rocks."
We, silently, trudged along in our pasture straining to hear his words on this hot August morning.
"Mother and I stopped about here. She was holding my hand. Then she told Father to come to dinner.
About that time the guywire, which held the hoist that lifted the rocks, snapped. Mother was knocked down and pinned to the ground."
Time had ceased, as we relived the actual moment of horror and sorrow with this little lost boy of four, who had one moment held security and the next become totally lost to oblivion.
His father worked vainly to free his young wife and mother, whose life had already ceased from a broken neck.
Tears and sobs were as real as they must have been earlier; for the elderly man reliving the loss of his mother so near the Judgment Day Storm Cellar.
Gravesite Details
First wife of Robert Lee Barrett. Mother of Thomas Barrett.
Family Members
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