Monday, June 27, 2011
Walking Old Indiana
8:07 PM | 
Posted by
Cheryl |
I have a restless husband. That much is true. Every few weeks, an adventure is needed. And so yesterday we ventured south to the Hoosier National Forest for a hike. An hour and a half drive through lovely farmland and an eight mile bump down a Tower Ridge Road (gravel) brought us to the Sycamore Loop trail in the Charles Deem Wilderness area.
We started walking along an abandoned logging road that would lead us out to Terrill Cemetery, our first stop. It was gorgeous weather - 80 degrees and dry. The path stayed fairly level the entire hike and flat roadbed was easiest portion of the trail. It was odd to be walking out into what felt like the middle of nowhere and find a cemetery without a town. But what is now forested wilderness was once completely cleared by logging and settled by subsistence farmers. The land was not suited for farming, however, and the settlers struggled along. When the depression hit, the farms failed, the U.S. Forest Service acquired the lands, and the Civilian Conservation Corps began rehabilitating the land for recreational use. In 1982 the area was designated as a wilderness area and it is now managed by the Hoosier National Forest.
From the moment you step out of the forest into Terrill Cemetery, it is obvious that life was very different back then. The hard ground would not yield crops and farms did not flourish. Neither did children.
So many short lives. The adults rarely lived past 60, and the number of children buried there almost equaled the number of adults. Some children's parents were able have a lamb carved for their tombstone. Most could not. The Axsom family lost Dora, Dartha, Dorval, and Delphia all in 1931. It appears that when their one year old Betty died in 1939, they came back and placed this marker for all five of their lost children. Unimaginable.
Many of the families were so poor that their markers were quite crude - just local stone, hand carved. All that survives of some of these markers is a stump of stone. Who were they? What are their stories?
We started walking along an abandoned logging road that would lead us out to Terrill Cemetery, our first stop. It was gorgeous weather - 80 degrees and dry. The path stayed fairly level the entire hike and flat roadbed was easiest portion of the trail. It was odd to be walking out into what felt like the middle of nowhere and find a cemetery without a town. But what is now forested wilderness was once completely cleared by logging and settled by subsistence farmers. The land was not suited for farming, however, and the settlers struggled along. When the depression hit, the farms failed, the U.S. Forest Service acquired the lands, and the Civilian Conservation Corps began rehabilitating the land for recreational use. In 1982 the area was designated as a wilderness area and it is now managed by the Hoosier National Forest.
From the moment you step out of the forest into Terrill Cemetery, it is obvious that life was very different back then. The hard ground would not yield crops and farms did not flourish. Neither did children.
Many of the families were so poor that their markers were quite crude - just local stone, hand carved. All that survives of some of these markers is a stump of stone. Who were they? What are their stories?
The name and dates are gone, but the heart remains. All we know of this person is that they were loved enough for unskilled hands to carve this heart out of stone, and it has lasted all of this time.
Who was W.L. and how did he or she die on March 1, 1884? How old were they? Were they also loved?
Something about cemeteries reminds me of snapshots. Each headstone tells a story, but you only get to see the briefest glimpse of the tale. When these souls were laid to rest, poor farmland surrounded this cemetery. Now, the forest presses in. Of the five cemeteries in the Deam Wilderness area, this is one of the two best preserved. Some are lost in the forest and to time.
We stepped back into time on the old road, and continued our journey. Immediately we were surrounded once more by living things
.
On the sun dappled path, butterflies and flowers flourished.
Snack food for the journey above, but not below:
Not long after the cemetery, we turned off the old road and entered the forest. Here there were tall trees, dense undergrowth, and dark shade. Mosquitos buzzed, and ferns and fungus, rather than flowers decorated the landscape.
Instead of a wide road on which we could walk three abreast, we now wished for a machete as we picked our way through dense greenery - some of which was not friendly. It was beautiful, but you found yourself concentrating so much on each step that it was difficult to take in the larger picture.
The forest was busily engaged in its own "dust to dust, ashes to ashes" renovation with insects and fungus providing the workforce. But even here, the beauty close up was as stunning as a flower.
Up close, this Coral Fungus looked liked a tubular anemone that Nemo would have hidden in - so it was fitting to find out that the name suits it well.
Once more, the diversity, detail and beauty of God's creation was astounding and compelling. We weren't in a famous location or a well known national park. We were in a backwoods area of Indiana and jaw-dropping beauty surrounded us. All of it, like the children of the farmers, was fragile.
Our trail continued through what appeared to be rainforest, and then transitioned to a pine forest with needles carpeting the narrow footpath. The scent of the needles here immediately brought back memories of the backpacking trips of my youth, and of Angeles Crest Christian Camp in the summertime. I didn't get pictures of the pine forest area, unfortunately. The trail finally crossed an almost dry stream several times before switch-backing its way up and back to civilization. The stream crossings were enjoyable for their multitude of geodes. We picked up five of them to take home and crack open . . . whaling away on them at 9pm at night in our backyard probably enforced our neighbors opinions that we're nuts!
We were so sore the next day we hobbled about like little old people. Which maybe we are . . . but it felt good. We'd had an adventure, and although I complained about the length of our hike, I've now been eyeing a 9.4 mile trail in the same wilderness area for another day. After all, scenes and experiences like these just cannot be found in my paved and plastic neighborhood, can they?
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