Fire - An Ever-present Danger

My grandmother's sister, Hazel Lucille Edwards, was born on 23 July 1916. She and my grandma shared a birthday, four years apart, so there was likely a special bond between the two. The family lived in the country as my great-grandfather, George Elmus Edwards, was a farmer. He and Olive Isabel Pogue were married on 31 March 1910 in Williamson County, Illinois, and the children started coming almost immediately.

Hazel Lucille Edwards

George Everett Edwards, their only son, was born on 1 October 1910. My grandmother was born on 23 July 1912. Hazel came next in 1916, and Ruby Laura was born on 27 April 1920. 

In November 1921, Laura, as she was known, was about 17 months old; likely still a handful for her mother. The 12th of November was a Saturday, and those were still the days when baths were mostly taken once a week, on Saturdays, to be ready for church the next day. 

Hazel got her bath and put on her nightgown. She stood in front of the fireplace or the stove to dry her hair. To everyone's horror, her clothing caught fire. It's unclear who was there other than my grandmother. But the fire wasn't put out in time, and Hazel died that very day.

My grandmother never talked much about this - she didn't hide it, but she never elaborated on the incident. I recall her mentioning that Hazel didn't die right away. The family would have been some distance from a hospital. The nearest was in Herrin, some 25 miles away. 

An inquest was held, and it was ruled an accidental death due to a missing grate.

Death Certificate Hazel Edwards

Hazel Lucille Edwards was buried the next day at County Line Cemetery. She was just five years old. Her headstone has the lamb on top that typically signifies the death of a child. 

Find a Grave #10871795, photo by DebRob


This week's #25Ancestors Prompt was Fire.

The "Family" Cemetery

While we do not have a real family cemetery, I've always kind of thought of County Line Cemetery as a "family" cemetery. Situated next to County Line Baptist Church, it is located on the county line between Franklin and Williamson Counties, Illinois, and is sometimes known as Zion Grove Cemetery.

The church was founded in 1867, and the first burials at the cemetery were around 1870. They continue to this day. When I was younger, I would always go to southern Illinois (from Chicago) with my grandmother to visit and put flowers on the graves. I didn't pay too much attention at the time, and now I wish I had. I suspect my grandmother could have told me many stories about people who were buried there. 

Both my grandmother and her husband are buried there. I always thought it was odd that my grandmother's name was engraved on the stone - long before she died. It was something I didn't understand as a child. The monument is more elaborate than I expected from my grandmother. She was always a plain, practical woman, but she obviously splurged when setting up the grave marker for my grandfather. 

Looking through the names of graves listed on Find a Grave (587 of them, which is likely most of the graves), I recognize name after name — either as a relative, a collateral relative who married into the family, or friends and neighbors of the family. These include:

• Armes
• Beasley (by marriage)
• Blades (neighbors)
• Cardwell (by marriage)
• Davenport (by marriage)
• Edwards (including uncles, aunts, cousins, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, 3rd and 4th great-grandparents, etc.)
• Finney (by marriage)
• Fletcher (by marriage and neighbors)
• Jordan (by marriage)
• King (by marriage)
• Parker (by marriage)
• Plaster
• Pritchard (neighbors)
• Rains (cousins, uncles, aunts, and some great-grandparents, etc.)
• Rotramel (by marriage and neighbors)
• Smith (by marriage)
• Striplin (by marriage)
• Summers (by marriage)

These names were selected through a brief review of the burials posted on Find a Grave. But I suspect that more than half of the people buried there have some kind of relationship to my family. And that's why I've always considered it the family cemetery. 

This week's #52Ancestors prompt is Cemetery.