Patriot and Daughter

Nature had put on her party clothes for us as we drove through upstate New York in mid October. Sunshine yellow beech, rusty red maple and cool green Hemlock were knitted a patchwork skirt with a blue topaz blouse. The view kept our attention, so the seemingly endless turns and dirt back country roads didn’t bother us as we navigated our way to Evergreen Hill Cemetery. Our mission was to get a headstone rubbing of my ancestor, Gad Sutliff, Revolutionary War Patriot, and his wife Katherine who passed in 1842 and 1813 respectively.  

A cemetery finally appeared on the roadside with a well kept but empty parking area running the length of short stone wall.

“I hope it’s not locked.” I said to my husband as I swung out of the rental, tracing paper and charcoal in hand.

“The stone wall is only two feet tall, I imagine we can climb over it.” He answered.

True enough, I thought. There was an area where even that short wall had crumbled to a mere hint of a barrier. But the gate was not locked, a simple latch was all it had.

“Let’s split up and take this one row at a time. It is rather large but the sections are clearly marked.. Yell if you see something.”

I agreed and I went right, he went left.

The grass was neat and well mowed in Evergreen Hill Cemetery, still an active cemetery in some sections. The section I was walking was certainly not active. Names from my family tree jumped out at me, familiar but I didn’t think were actual ancestors. Wickware. Long. Crane. I snapped some photos with my phone of the headstones for further research just in case. I was looking for just one surname, Sutliff.

My husband yelled out, “Anything?”

“NO!” I hollered back”

“Keep walking, miss” A calm stern voice whispered through the yellow birch leaves.

I whipped around. “MICK! WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

“I ASKED IF YOU FOUND ANYTHING!” He repeated.

“OH! NEVERMIND” 

I kept walking. Dodge. Burnham. Sumner. Another lane.

Boughton. Steward. Chase. An entire family circle of Long’s. Another lane.

Nothing of Gad and Katherine Sutliff.

“Find the tree.” The stern voice whispered again in the wind, it sounded a bit impatient. 

“WHAT?” I bellowed to Mick, now even farther from me, didn’t hear me at all.

It wasn’t Mick yelling. There is a voice in the wind. A male voice telling me to keep walking and find a tree. I look up ahead of me searching for a tree ahead of me. There are maybe a dozen. I look over to Mick. He is almost ready to enter the new area, selfishly I don’t want him to come over. I want this for myself. I need to hurry. 

I stopped my lazy meader lane by lane walk and bee line to the nearest tree and circle it.

Darrow. Webb. Nothing else. I walk quickly to the next nearest. Sumner. Hadley. Judson. The next tree is older, half dead with only a few branches with red leaves clinging to it.

The stones below are too old and illegible. One has toppled over and is slowly overgrown by the earth itself.

“Hello, daughter,” not a whisper this time. A voice. Strong and true.

I looked up and there in the damn sunshine is an old man in homespun clothes, hat in hand, like he has come to formally meet me.

“Hello, daughter,” He says again.

“Hello, Grandfather.” I can barely speak. And if that wasn’t enough, a woman similarly dressed. Homespun clothes, apron over the top, a simple bonnet on her head stepped from behind the tree. “Grandmother?”

“Yes, child. We have waited for someone of the blood to come into our burial ground to settle our spirits.” She explained.

My heart broke. They have been waiting for almost two hundred years. Tears began to well in my eyes.

“What happened? Why aren’t your spirits moving on?” I was desperately trying to ignore the slight transparency of their forms. I didn’t want to see the rows of headstones through Katherine’s nearly white apron or the way the skinny branches of the tree above dipped and waved right through Gad Sutliff’s head and shoulders. My God, they are actual ghosts.

Gad was looking at me patiently. “Are you ok, my daughter? You have gone a bit peaked.”

Oh yes I imagine I had. I needed to pull my shit together. I straightened my shoulders and looked him in the eye. “I am well, Grandfather. Tell me, why are you not moving on? And how can I help?”

“We were cursed, by a witch, to walk this earth until our blood remembered and honored us.” Katherine added taking a few steps to be next to her husband, which had her standing on ,or more accurately inside, his headstone. Gracious, that's not creepy. 

“Your children surely came when you passed Grandfather?” I asked.

“No, no. They had moved to the west to find their own lands to farm, families to raise.” he paused. “Where did your family hail from??

“Indiana. Your family came through Ohio and then to Indiana. Now I live in Illinois.”

His eyes grew wide and crinkled in a smile. “So far!”

I nodded, with a happy grin and continued. “I am part of a group of women who are very very proud to be descendants of men such as you, Gad Sutliff.”  

He raised his eyebrows in question “Oh so?”

“We are called the Daughters of the American Revolution. And we have to prove our ancestor was a soldier in the American Revolution, or a civilian that significantly aided the war effort.” I smiled happily and continued, “Thank you for bringing the United States into life, Sir. And to you Katherine, for being a wife in a time when it had to be challenging to be a woman and mother. Thank you both. I truly owe you my life.”

They stood there, slightly slack jawed, ghostly tears in their eyes. While I had very real, very warm tears in mine. 

“Daughter,” Gad started, “Pray tell us your name.”

“Barbara, it’s Barbara.”

“Barbara, you have brought us honor beyond measure. I do not believe anymore that we were cursed. I believe we were blessed, for who on this earth are as privileged as we to learn our legacy. It is we who are grateful for you and your Daughters for their remembrance.”

Tears were streaming hot and fast now. She saw them fading as he spoke, the colors of their clothes becoming even more dull. Their eyes becoming sunken and hollow, their skin graying before her eyes. It was so hard to watch. But she stood still and honored their second death. Smiling through the tears as they faded away into the next, whatever the next would be for them. And when they were gone, completely gone to the last tiny wisp of petticoat, she slumped to the tree in sobs.

Mick was there within a minute, holding her. “Who have you been talking to? I have been yelling. But you were ignoring me.” He whispered into her hair.

“It is so weird to explain. But I was talking to Gad and Katherine Sutliff.” 

“Well I took some photos from about thirty-forty yards off, we will see what pops up on the camera.”

“You believe me?” I was a bit shocked at the immediate acceptance, I mean we had been married for decades but I just told him I had talked to ghosts.

“I saw you very clearly talking with someone who I could not see. So yes I believe you.”

“Guess I’ll keep you”

“Guess you’ll have to! I have proof you're crazy now.” I could feel his smile against my scalp. It made my heart lighten and my world seemed a little brighter.

“I can’t tell anyone in DAR about this and that sucks. It’s amazing.”

“Yea, that does suck.” 

“But now you know for sure this is his grave.”

“And Katherine’s, so we can work with the local DAR for help to restore it.”

“Well you just need to get them dug and reset, they are weathered but clear enough.” Mick said.

I looked at the stones again because they were not clear at all. But he was right, they had sharpened a bit. Enough so they were very legible. I could clearly see their names and inscriptions:

Katherine Squire

Born July 21 1795

Died December 30 1813

Sutliff Gad Sutliff   Veteran

Born January 2 1756

Died April 4, 1842

They were home.