My trip to Scotland Neck, North Carolina

I’ve been hungry to go to Scotland Neck, NC. My goal is to go and work in my ancestry adventures into my family trips. After researching my Scotland Neck Family for quite sometime I was anxious to get down there. This largely researched side of my family is the closest in distance to visit. Last year I visited my Maternal Grandfather side for a reunion and so I was excited to make this trip to Scotland Neck.  We picked up my Grandmother so she could navigate us. She was fired up once we got there because they had moved things around. Lol. Imagine that!  This post will be mainly pictures and I will let the pictures speak for themselves

I had done some research prior but it made me very sad that the area was so depressed.  every other 4/5 home was not in livable condition and some of the homes that had roof’s falling in you could tell that people were living in them. There are no jobs here, a few business, but really nothing booming the economy down here. After speaking to a elder cousin, 82, she spoke of how when she was a child and growing up her parents and her self included use to pick cotton. She said now the farmers have machines doing the work for them. Things have changed.

Below is my husband and Grandmother. We are trying to locate her mothers grave! She said the church was repositioned differently that she remebered and we also drove in a diffrent way which totally threw her off. She felt discouraged that we couldn’t find the grave. The kids helped as well.  Article about Slave Cemeteries.

Kehukie Baptist Church below

This is wear my Maternal Grandmother family resides.

This church below is Mary Chapel Church.

I have family buried here as well.  I looked around a bit but I don’t think I was able to find any relatives.  Once you leave the church parking lot at Mary Chapel Church you will make a right out of the parking lot and then make a right onto Cemetery Road. Drive down 1/4 of a mile down, maybe and the cemetery is on both sides of the road.  I only looked on one side of the cemetery because I had all 5 of my kids with me and even though everyone was doing well. I was tired, hungry  and thirsty. I will find another reason to make a trip back down there.

Below is Mary Chapel Cemetery. This cemetery was kept up a lot better than the Kehukie Cemetery.  More literature on Slave cemeteries here

Below is Kehukie cemetery

Below Kehukie Cemetery. My kids were extremely helpful in reading the graves. Do you see the bar sticking out ? My Grandmother said that is a grave marker for someone that has been layed to rest.

Hidden grave at Kehukie Cemetery below.  I have to admit I had mix feelings about Kehukie. I could not interpret what I was feeling until driving back home. I told my husband I wanted to go back down to Scotland Neck because I didn’t get to do everything I wanted to do. He asked me why and during the conversation I realized that some work needs to be done at Kehukie and also help uncovering some of the hidden graves.  People should be able to go to a cemetery and walk directly to their loved one. People should also be buried and know that the area they are layed to rest is cared for. There is a active church on the property I wonder if they would have a community service day clearing out the graves.

Great Grandmother Mable  below

My Granny  said she had no money to bury her mother. She paid $500 to bury her. Her mother was placed a in wooden box. 

Below are some family members 

 

Below is a picture of a red house. This red house is a house my Grandmother grew up in from the time she was 2 months old until the time she was about 10 years. Her Aunt Hattie  who she called momma and who raised her lived here. Two of her cousins live next door to the red house and one lives on the right side of the house and the other cousin lives on the left side of the house. No one lives in the red house. It was so cute to see the house and just take in the stories I’ve heard all of these years, actually come to life, so to speak.

This is a picture of my Grandmother that same house when she was 5/6 years old with her little friend name Josephine.