I've tried to arrange this gallery so it makes some spatial sense to viewers.
I've begun with the plot itself, starting with the PHILLIPS family. Then I moved to the MAJORS family. They share the family marker - PHILLIPS on one side, MAJORS on the other.
The plot is located right near the front right corner of the cemetery as you enter, and the family stone sits smack in the middle of it. Individual family members markers are almost flush with the ground. There is a noticable sunken area near the older PHILLIPS graves which are closest to the front of the plot if you're reading from the road.
The PHILLIPS graves here, reading left to right, are those of William A. PHILLIPS, Jimmie L. "Lula" (SARRATT) PHILLIPS, and Hershell PHILLIPS.
The back row of the plot has the MAJORS family all in a line. From left to right is Mack MAJORS, Clara (PHILLIPS) MAJORS, Clara R. MAJORS, and Rachel (MONTGOMERY, MAJORS) KURTZ.
There is an "empty space" between Clara R. MAJORS and her grandmother, Rachel KURTZ mother of Mack MAJORS. Rachel first married James H. "Jim" MAJORS and then Edwin H. KURTZ, always called "Mr. Kurtz" by the family. Jim MAJORS is buried in Rhea Co, just over the line, in the Newport Family Cemetery, often called the Garrison Cemetery. As of 22 Jun 2006, I haven't located Mr. KURTZ's grave. He may even be next to Rachel here, for all I know. Research is needed.
The families are on the right-hand border of the cemetery as you face the cemetery from the highway. In September 2003 and March 2004, a policeman and his family were living in the little white house that's visible to the right in many of the context photos, to the bottom left in others. Across the road and down toward the other end of the cemetery is a small garden or produce stand. Back in the area behind that, after you climb a bit but before you start up the mountain proper, is where Mack and Clara lived in the 1940s and 50s. William "Bud" and Lula lived for a long time, as I understand it, somewhere in the aging working class residential area that would be behind the cemetery - sort of over the hill that rises up behind their graves.
According to census reports, Rachel, Mr. Kurtz, Laura Majors, and Mack Majors lived for a time in the late 1890s and early 1900s on Clifty Street right in Harriman.
The MAJORS family's local roots were in the Whites Creek, Eagle Furnace, and Glen Alice areas of Roane and Rhea counties.
Genevieve MAJORS, Clara PHILLIPS' oldest daughter was a namesake of Lula's, but she hid the "Lula Emma" part of her given names as much as she could. I know she dearly loved her Ma and Pa Phillips. I think it was just the name that got to her.
Both William "Bud" and Mack worked for the railroad and if their census entries are to believed, never lived far from railroad tracks. Chances are that from at least the 1940s until his death, you'd only have seen Mack without his engineer cap if he was in his pajamas. Each night he'd park it on the piano bench in the living room, and then in the morning, he'd put it back on before he was completely dressed. Clara kept him well supplied in spanking clean, starched hats. They really set off the bib overalls he wore most of the time, as well.
In the early 1960s, he would meet the trains daily. His and Clara's house in Rockwood was on Rathburn Street, a very short two blocks from the station. I'm not real sure about how his history with the railroad wound up. One census entry shows him as a "car inspector" and one shows him as a conductor. I do know from a pay stub that was in Clara's scrapbook that he was working for a time at Oak Ridge in the early 1950s and not for the railroad. I need to check the railroad pension files for him, but I have a hunch that he might never have drawn a pension from them.
Family always said that Clara worked most of her married life. That she worked at the local hosiery mills is confirmed in part by an article in her scrapbook which contains a 1949 article from the Burlington mill newsletter in Harriman. The article features her with the beloved cacti to which she devoted quite a bit of space in her small home.Burlington identifies her job as a greige goods sizer -whatever that may have been. At the time of the article, she had been working at the Harriman mill since 1932, taking time off, she says, in the mid 1940s because of Lula's poor health. I'm her namesake, and she'd just love it, I know, that among my prized possessions are a couple of short threads taken from one of the one of the last spools from that mill, given to me by Darlene Trent at the Roane County Historical Society along with a lettehead certification of their authenticity shortly after the mill closed its doors in 2003.
index for - and information about - each photo in the file:
This is the PHILLIPS & MAJORS family marker at Willard Park CemeteryHarriman Roane Co TN. This is a photo of the side that faces the road. The reverse side has the MAJORS name.
William A. "Bud" PHILLIPS, husband of Lula SARRATT. Bud was the son of George Washington PHILLIPS (1854) and Sarah STEVENS (1859-1887) of Hamilton Co, TN.
Lula J. "Lula" PHILLIPS, wife of William A.
This is Jimmie L. "Lula" SARRATT, daughter of Daniel J. SARRATT (1847-1907) and Rachel I. HASS (1850-1912) of Jackson Co, AL
Hershell PHILLIPS
son of William A. and Lula PHILLIPS, brother of Clara MAJORS
Context photo: The PHILLIPS and MAJORS family marker again. In the background, the individual marker for Mack MAJORS and a partial view of the cemetery hill rising behind the PHILLIPS-MAJORS plot. The individual PHILLIPS markers in the previous pictures would be lined up just below the bottom margin of this picture, with the family stone just about in the center of them.
PHILLIPS and MAJORS family marker - the MAJORS side. Mack MAJORS was a Mason. He belonged to the lodge in Rockwood for years. Clara (PHILLIPS) MAJORS belonged to Eastern Star. In the background of this picture are the homes across the street from the cemetery as of March 2004. The cemetery entrance road comes in just beyond the edge of the photo. The hill in the previous photo would now be behind someone viewing the marker.
Context photo. The drive behind me leads to the garage just visible in an earlier photo. The small house that is visible here is to the left of the larger home in the previous photo. I was using a portable GPS receiver to record the latitude and longitude of the marker.
Clara P. MAJORS. Born Clara PHILLIPS, daughter of William A. "Bud" and Lula PHILLIPS. This marker is directly to the right of her husband Mack's (previous photo). I was living abroad when Clara died, and I didn't have her burial location until the autumn of 2003. On our first visit, we saw that her death information had not been placed on her stone, a marker she'd bought before she died. We hope soon to have her date of death engraved on it: 13 Jan 1977.
Clara R. MAJORS. Daughter of Clara and Mack MAJORS. According to the family, she died when she was thirteen days old. Her marker is directly to the right of her mother's. Between her and her grandmother's graves, there is a space without a marker. I don't know whetther or not it contains a grave. Roane County cemetery books give Clara R's death as 1926, but her marker clearly reads, as you can see, 1925.
Rachel (MONTGOMERY) KURTZ/ Rachel (MONTGOMERY) MAJORS, mother of Mack MAJORS. Daughter of David Washington MONTGOMERY (1824-1879) and Mary "Polly" Graves BRANDON (1836-1916). Mother of Mack MAJORS. Her marker is to the right of her granddaughter, Clara R. MAJORS (previous photo). Rachel married James H. "Jim" MAJORS (b 1864) in 1890. He died in 1895. Rachel married Edwin H. KURTZ in 1898.
Clara's namesake with her grandmother's marker. This photo was taken March 2004. I was named for her and evidently - but something I didn't know until 2003 -for one of her daughters, as well. Both Claras are interred at Willard Park Cemetery.
Same as the previous photo but showing more of the family plot's context. The three MAJORS stones visible here are, from left to right - Mack, Clara Phillips, and Clara R.
Still panning to the left. The line just visible toward the bottom of the photo is a low stone dividing marker at the back of the PHILLIPS-MAJORS family plot.
Just a little more to the left from the PHILLIPS-MAJORS plot once more. The entry road to the cemetery is visible on the left side of the photo.
This photo is just a pan to the right from the previous photo. I'm trying to give you some sense of the cemetery, its density, and its environs. The hill rises more behind those who'd be standing here and falls both to the left and right. I'm standing a little right of the center of the cemetery. There are graves 360 degrees of this position, and the density is about the same as it's been in the previous photos.
