"Decoration Day in Country Graveyards" by May Kennedy McCord, first published May 31, 1938

May Kennedy McCord was a journalist and folklorist in the Ozarks from the 1920s to 1960s. She was popularly known as "Queen of the Hillbillies" or "First Lady of the Ozarks" by her readers.

For 10 years McCord wrote a column in the Springfield News and Leader and Springfield Daily News called "Hillbilly Heartbeats." The column features her own recounting of happenings in the Ozarks and submissions from her readers.

The following is a transcription of May's column, "Decoration Day in Country Graveyards," originally published in the Springfield Day News on May 31, 1938.

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And so I felt as I stood in the little graveyard yesterday — Never never bring them back again! But as King David said of the beautiful baby that he lost — “He cannot come again to me, but I can go to him.”

There is something so sweet about Decoration Day in the country and little village graveyards that just simply is not there in the formality and ceremony of the larger cities. Friends gather early in the morning and decorate and maybe just sit with their dead. Clear away the weed and old leaves. Place the weeds and old leaves. Place their bouquets so they will look the prettiest. Then they go to other graves and visit with neighbors and friends. It is a general coming home and we see friends that we see only once a year, come from afar, some of them. We know where everyone is buried and when they were buried. We know all their people — we know the circumstances of their death. We know whom they married and maybe whom they secretly worshipped all their lives. We know romances and tragedies and great griefs. We visit and recall old days. We divide flowers and there is such a sweetness of spirit and such a tenderness and sense of peace out on the sun-bathed hill!

And finally, we come to the place that we have more friends laid there than we have left here — then we begin to know that it is just such a little while — and we do not seem to care so much. I have often wished I could visit all the old, old out-of-the-way, deserted graveyards of the Ozarks. Not the “silent cities of the dead.” No, the silent little country gatherings of the dead! If all those sweet and wonderful ones I loved in my little cemetery in Galena should come forth it would not be a “city.” But, oh, it would be a happy picnic! I can see them all now, and almost name them! My own flesh and blood, and those as dear to me as the very heart in my bosom! Mary Elizabeth Mahnkey says something in a poem about not wanting any floral doodads and wax vanities on her grave — but she wants a gnarled old cedar to keep watch and a tall pine to sing. Yes, my dear ... yes!

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: May Kennedy McCord's column "Decoration Day in Country Graveyards"