A Cookbook Committee Report*

(or, An AlaBenton Adventure)

 

By Dot Bishop

 

            Recently, several members of AlaBenton’s Cookbook Committee—Lou Walker, Barbara Barker, Willie Bunt and I,  piled into Lou’s car at 9:00 AM on a mission to go to Pelham Range  and photograph the cemeteries there.  We had been told we could get a map to the cemetery sites at Gate 3, so we jaunted off to that location, naively anticipating a routine excursion.

 

            At the first gate, a guard directed us to another gate off McClellan Blvd. for a permit to enter the Range, since visitation there is allowed only on certain days.  At our request, a guard furnished copies of a map showing the cemetery locations.  He volunteered to call ahead and tell (alert?) them that we were coming.  “Simple enough,” we commented while perusing the map.  “We can find these without any problems.”  Boy, were we wrong!

 

            We stopped at the designated gate, stated our purpose, and were asked to park while the guard checked Lou’s ID and verified the car tag.  Apparently assured that we weren’t terrorists but just little old ladies with a harmless goal, he then directed us to the Range Control building.

 

            “We’re sorry,” the next guard told us.  “No one is allowed on the Range because of the danger; training is in progress by the Alabama Army National Guard.”

 

            Sgt. 1^st Class Thomas Jatko, a fine young man who must have a soft spot for little old ladies on a mission, saw our disappointment.  “Let me make a call,” he said, “to see where on the Range training is being conducted.”  After a brief telephone conversation, he hung up the phone.

“Good news!” he said.  “No exercises are scheduled for today and activity on the Range is cancelled.” 

 

            We were jubilant.  Pass in hand, we were free to pursue our goal, confident that it wouldn’t take long to find the cemeteries and make the pictures.  Wrong again.  We would still be roaming around that firing range, no doubt dodging ammo by now, had not our guardian angel, Sgt. Jatko, offered to lead us.  “I’ll get a Jeep and you girls can follow me,” he said.

 

            So off we went, back to Gate 3, where the guards just smiled and waved us on this time, seeing that we were now an elite group with a personal escort.  A General could not have had better treatment. The roads were paved and mostly good as we drove toward the first cemetery on our schedule, the Pace Family Cemetery.  “This is easy,” we chattered.

 

            Sgt. Jatko strictly adhered to the 25-mph speed limit, which got a little tiresome, but after stops at about three more cemeteries, we came to a locked gate. The good sergeant radioed the Range Control person, who quickly met up with us and unlocked the gate, allowing us to continue on.  The road became progressively worse, with broken pavement and, eventually, only chert and rock.  Then another locked gate.  We were at a crossroad, it seemed, with the closed road proceeding straight ahead and the open road leading in another direction.

 

            “We can turn around and go the long way back, or we can take a shortcut” they told us, as the Range Control person left to get a key to more gates we would encounter on our journey “but the shortcut may get a bit rough.” 

 

            The two routes looked about the same to us, dirt roads either way, so we chose the shortcut.  St. Jatko led the way, with the Range Control truck following us--quite a convoy.  Soon we understood what they meant by rough.  There were places where the wooden bridge was partially gone, but Lou’s driving skills were up to the challenge, and she somehow managed to follow the Jeep as it edged along the high side of the bridge.  “Whew!” we sighed.  “We didn’t have to get out and push the car this time.”  But we wondered what was yet to come.

 

            As we bumped along, the dust from the road and the Jeep ahead piled over our car.  Had there been air conditioning in the Jeep, we could have ridden with the Sgt., but it was either eat dust or swelter in the heat, so we were grateful to keep cool in the car.  Once or twice, we paused while the Sgt. stopped his Jeep and got out to pick from the bushes along the road what we later learned were wild plums.  We never asked if he ate them.  We also saw wild turkey and an occasional deer.  As all the scenery began to look alike, someone said, “I could swear we’ve been by here before.  We must be going around in circles.”  We all agreed that the “shortcut” seemed awfully long, but finally, we reached the next cemetery.  We had not thought to bring food or water, as we expected to be finished by noon.  Lou produced a pack of crackers from her car, which we shared with the Sgt., since it was now long past lunchtime.

 

            Eventually, we visited all the cemeteries and made pictures, and it was worth every bumpy, dusty mile—perhaps a feeling that only a genealogist can truly appreciate.  The Sgt. seemed amused at our enthusiasm, as he patiently waited while we walked from stone to stone, making pictures.  We covered all seven cemeteries on the Range that day, but still wanted to visit two cemeteries on civilian property at McClellan before returning home.  One was the German-Italian Cemetery where prisoners of war were buried during WWII, and the other was New Hope, where members of Willie Bunt’s family are buried.  St. Jatko graciously offered to lead us there, too, knowing that by now, we were thoroughly disoriented.

 

            We reached the last cemetery exhausted but happy and made pictures of the group standing by the car, wondering if the color of the car, buried under the heavy coating of road dust,  would ever be seen again. It was now mid-afternoon, so we invited the good Sgt.  to have lunch with us.   He courteously declined, so with grateful hearts, we bade him good-bye.

 

            The drivers we passed on the way home may have wondered if our car had a bad problem, or if we normally drove with dust swirling everywhere.  What they didn’t know was that our car contained some blissfully happy little old ladies who had successfully accomplished their mission.                                                                             

 

*Ed. Note:  In case our readers have been wondering just what kind of recipes this cookbook will contain, rest assured that it is not designed for cannibals.  They are just favorite recipes, some from relatives long gone.  We named the cookbook accordingly (Buried Treasures), and decided to decorate the dividers with photos of some of our older local cemeteries in honor of some very good cooks who have passed on.  Thus the need for the photos.    (It’s a genealogy thing, and it’s a great tie-in to our historical cemetery registration project.)

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