Russell Cemetery in Sallis becomes a center point for reconnection with family and local history, and a renewed sense of community
A mile and a half down a dirt road in Sallis, on the hill to the right where the road dead-ends, sits the old Russell Cemetery.
Over the course of many years, the burial place of many Stingleys, Guytons, and Rileys, had become almost indistinguishable from the surrounding wooded area, except for the cleared path up the right side of the hill front. Up on the hill, some graves were hidden under years of tree growth, leaves or brush covering the graves and their headstones. Other graves were sunken deep into the hillside, their headstones now crookedly perched above the depression in the soil or toppled by the shifting earth.
Corey Guyton, head basketball coach at Kosciusko High School, spreads fresh soil on a family grave. Karen Fioretti / The Star-Herald
Last Saturday, however, the cemetery inspired a revival of tradition.
As a boy, Hubert Ray Evans moved from Chicago to Sallis where he lived with his grandfather following his parent’s divorce.
“Going back to my mom and dad, they left here during the Great Migration. The city life versus country life got to him, and, of course, alcohol became an addiction, Mom and Dad separated,” he remembers now. “And of course, my proud World War I grandfather, they didn't believe in welfare. ‘You got to go to work,’ he said. And he was like, send that boy here to me. And wow, I remember that,” Evans recalled
Although he lives in the Chicago area, Evans returns to Mississippi from time to time, and says the Sallis area “is a place I truly came to love.”
Peggy Williams and her niece diligently went from headstone to headstone, carefully cleaning each to reveal the sometimes hidden inscriptions. Karen Fioretti / The Star-Herald
“I just fell in love with this place, fell in love with my grandfather, of course. And it just it caught on,” he said.
Evans remembers integration during his time at McAdams and seeing racial unrest around the country during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.
“This has always been a melting pot. You had the whites, you had the blacks, and at that time, you had the Choctaw Indians that worked together…. I was blessed to see that as a little kid,” he said.
Diane Riley and L.V. Allen rest and reminisce. Karen Fioretti / The Star-Herald
He later returned to the Chicago area and joined the U.S. Army, earning the rank of Sergeant First Class before retiring after 20 years of service.
Last Mother’s Day weekend, he arrived in McComb to lay flowers on his mother’s grave. She was buried there after she succumbed to COVID-19. He decided to travel through the Sallis area to visit the cemeteries where other elder family members had been laid to rest.
When he arrived at the Russell Cemetery, he was saddened to see its condition,
“I cried,” he said.
He decided to see if he could rekindle connections and a sense of community by planning an event akin to an old church revival.
Sarah Mentore prepares part of a community meal to be shared after the cleanup was complete. Karen Fioretti / The Star-Herald
“The yearly revivals, we had a week of going to church, and people came from all over the country, back to this area. And on that Saturday, the last day, they would have dinner on the (burial) grounds. Everybody brought their favorite dish to share,” he remembered, and wanted to revive that feeling by organizing an annual cleanup at Russell Cemetery.
From his Chicago home, Evans used social media to reach out to the families of those buried on the hill in Sallis. With much interest in cleaning up the cemetery and enjoying a pot-luck meal, he set the date. By the time he drove from Chicago to Mississippi last week, he had coordinated everything needed to make the day a success: volunteers, heavy equipment, rakes and shovels, folks willing to prepare a community meal, and tents under which everyone could sit and reminisce following the cleanup.
Frederick Riley cuts back from tree limbs with a chainsaw. Karen Fioretti / The Star-Herald
In all, a few dozen descendants of those buried in Russell Cemetery arrived throughout Saturday morning to clean up the resting place of their elders. As they did so, they reconnected with one another and their shared histories.
Many had not been to the site in the years — in some cases decades — since they last attended funeral services for an elder family member.
“That’s Martin Stingley,” said one man pointing out another riding atop a piece of heavy equipment, moving tangled brush and tree limbs from the front hillside of the cemetery.
“What?! He was just a little kid last time I saw him,” responded another, shaking his head in disbelief.
Ida Riley Shaw reads a headstone as Hubert Ray Evans removes some brush from graves at Russell Cemetery in Sallis. Karen Fioretti / The Star-Heral
It was a day filled with similar interactions and the sharing of stories from years past. Conversations were punctuated with laughter that pierced the din created by heavy equipment and the buzz of a chainsaw.
It was exactly what Evans had hoped for.
“Now we got all the families here, at least a representative from a lot of them.…And we've got a new birth, I mean, it's like a new sense of energy. We know that we can just never let this happen again,” Evans said as he surveyed everyone working in the cemetery with a big smile on his face, “And I'm really proud.”
