The Body that Turned to Stone

One of my earliest memories is that of visits made by my great grandfather to our home when I was about 8 years old and Grandpap was an ancient, yet frisky 87. Although he was a tad upset that his grandson had become one of those "damned Yankees", his feelings were tempered a bit by the fact that my father had also helped to run moonshine from Tennessee to Washington, DC. It proved the boy was still a good southerner. Yet, all that paled in comparison whenever he sat in the living room of our home and told his great grandchildren stories about things he had done or what had happened throughout his life.

Many of his stories were about events that occurred while he was a caretaker at a cemetery. One of his favorite tales concerned a young Yankee named Jack, who had argued with his father at the beginning of the Civil War. The young man had left home in anger and moved to Tennessee where he fought with the Confederate soldiers. Injured at one point by a musket ball that had entered his thigh, the young man was discharged after only two years of service and was sent home. He never married and lived alone in a small cabin just outside of Tazwell. He never spoke of his family up north, so when he died just a few years later at the age of 31, he was quietly laid to rest in the cemetery. His neighbors were others who had died while fighting or from the injuries they had sustained during the war.

Many years went by and the father of the young man, finally financially recovered from the effects of the Great Depression, was still worried about his missing son. Now, old and sick, he wanted to see his son and ask his forgiveness and to make things right between them. He was also quite wealthy and wanted his son to have his rightful inheritance. Unable to locate his son, he soon hired a private detective who would ferret out where Jack was located. It was with great sadness that the detective found that Jack had died and had been buried in the cemetery outside of the little town of Tazwell.

Broken-hearted, Jack's father, now in his 90th year, ordered the detective to return to the town and bring Jack home to be buried with the rest of his ancestors. He had a small, ornate coffin handcrafted and was made just large enough to place Jack's remains inside. He realized there could only be a handful of bones and dust. It had been 60 years since he had seen his son and he wanted to do that much for him.

When the detective returned to the little town of Tazwell and let it be known that he was to have Jack's body disinterred to be moved back to his home state, my Grandpap had to supervise the opening of the grave. However, he would not allow the detective to go with him and said he would personally take care of the matter. Taking the small ornate coffin, he summoned the gravediggers and they went to the cemetery alone.

The gravediggers carefully dug until they were able to pull the remains of the old wooden coffin to the surface of the ground. Considering how many years it had been in the ground, it was still almost solid with little evidence of damage, either by dirt or by water. Opening it, they were startled to find that Jack had not turned into a pile of dust and fragmented bones, as most bodies would have been by that time. Instead, the man's body had turned to solid stone.

Jack looked almost as if he could sit up at any moment and seemed even younger looking than his 31 years. It was as though he had become younger through the passage of time. Not a hair was missing from his head and his face bespoke of everlasting serenity and peace. His clothes appeared to be as new as the day his body had been cleaned and dressed for his funeral and with not a speck of dust or mold within the fabric of his jacket or inside the coffin itself. The only change was that Jack's body had turned as white and glossy as Tennessee marble.

Grandpap stood there staring along with the gravediggers and, with his hand over his mouth, pondered what he should do next. As things stood, the solid body that lay before him would not fit inside the little two by three-foot coffin that was intended to hold the young man's earthly, but now stone-like remains. He knew it could be weeks before the father would be able to send a more suitable container and he had no idea how the body would fare in the meantime. It was unlike anything he had ever seen.

One of the gravediggers, Mal Greene, was visibly excited and agitated at the sight of the body and, when Grandpap leaned over and touched Jack's face, the man leaped as if stung and ran screaming out of the graveyard. He could not bear to think another moment about a normal body being so "unnormal" in appearance. He would never again work as a gravedigger for the rest of his life.

After several moments had passed, Grandpap finally decided what he must do. He sent the remaining gravedigger home and told him that he would complete the job by himself. Once he was certain no one was left in the cemetery, he went to the little shed that held the tools needed for the regular maintenance around the cemetery grounds. Selecting a sledgehammer, Grandpap returned to the gravesite. He proceeded to break the body into small lumps of stone and dust, which he placed into the small ornate coffin. Jack was going home today.