Beltane New (Healing) Moon
Summer as a boy meant trips to Morristown, Indiana to visit grandma and grandpa Keaton, Aunt Virginia and Uncle Riley, and their kids Diane, Richard and Kristen. Charlie Keaton, my grandfather, pictured in a post below, was a horse trader. He made his money, as I understand it, by driving around in his car, listening to the stock reports from Indianapolis, and buying up cattle and other livestock, then selling them for a better price in the stockyards.
He loved horses, was a railbird at Churchill Downs and owned his own harness horses which he kept on the farm about three or four miles outside of Morristown. He lived in town in a big house. Set on a corner lot it had a wraparound porch, large trees that shaded it, so it was always cool, even in the humid southern Indiana heat.
Uncle Riley continued the harness racing tradition after my grandfather died. Richard picked it up from Uncle Riley.
Morristown, more than Alexandria, where I grew up, is a place where I have roots. Even though Mom and Dad’s graves are in Alexandria, it feels like a temporary place, someplace I was for awhile before moving on to my real life. Morristown, on the other hand, has that summer morning haze off the river feeling, a place where my people lived and where they still live.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Hanover Cemetery where the first row of grave markers are Keatons and near them are Zikes. Charlie and Mabel are there. Uncle Riley and Aunt Virginia. Aunt Barbara. Uncle Paul and Aunt Gertrude. Aunt Mary. And many more.
The farm, the one that grandpa won on a wager at the horse track, is just around the bend and up a slight rise from the cemetery. Keaton farmland runs in back of the cemetery and to the north of it.
What positive feelings I have about Indiana come from this small town, Grandpa’s big house, the farm and this cemetery. They represent, they are, for me the spot where family and place have the most coincidence.