By Bridget
I have spent a lot of time in cemeteries. Most of that time has been in the small rural
ones in south central Minnesota, where my dad and maternal grandpa and uncles
dug graves and some are now buried or scattered over.
Memorial Day was always spent visiting graveyards. We would go first to Bath cemetery near
Ellendale, MN where there would be an outdoor mass. Bath, the cemetery for St. Aiden’s church, was
close to where my grandma, Mary Ellen O’Leary nee Callahan was from and her
parents were buried there. It was a dark cemetery, surrounded by
trees. There was one tree with a small
pool of water in one of its aboveground roots.
My mom called this skunkwater and said it would cure warts. She said to put the wart in the water and
chant “Skunkwater skunkwater oatmeal shorts Barleycorn Barleycorn swallow these
warts."
After the mass was over and we had visited
the graves and saw the statue of the Virgin Mary, we would pile into the cars
and drive to Newry cemetery. Newry was
the cemetery for St. Mary’s Church, a short drive across the countryside to where
my Grandpa O’Leary’s family and many other Irish immigrants settled.
St. Mary’s
church has stained glass windows proudly bearing the inscription that they were
donated by O’Learys. Newry always seemed
sunnier and warmer than Bath. There were
more O’Leary’s buried there than Callahans at Bath, and this also made Newry
more appealing. When I was young, the
names meant nothing to me, but now there are many more familiar O’Learys and
with the arrival of my dad this past October, its first Donnelly.
The O’Leary graves and O’Leary headstone were
near the entrance of the cemetery. The
headstone was large and especially fun to climb, there are countless photos of
O’Leary relatives piled on and around this stone. After visiting the graves, we would run to
the back of the cemetery where there was a large altar with statues of Jesus on
the cross and the three mourning Marys.
This also needed to be climbed on, various photos taken and daringly
jumped off. Newry was also the best
cemetery to find headstones with my name on them.
Our Grandpa O’Leary began digging graves in 1977. His sons
Steve, Tim and Kevin helped him when they were home from their travels and our
dad, Tom, started helping in 1987. After my grandpa’s heart attack in 1988 Tom took
over. Throughout his 28 years of
grave digging he had many helpers. First
there were still the uncles, whenever they were around, then our neighbor, John
Grobner, who had also given my parents their farm, then our mom, then various
friends and acquaintances who needed the work or happened to be around. We all had boyfriends who helped out and our
high school friend ended up taking over when Tom died. My
brother Danny would dig in the summers when he was off from school and my
sisters and I helped fill in mainly, but also dug when that was needed. I dug
with my dad for about 2 months one winter and vowed never again.
The digging would begin by a funeral home calling our house
and whoever answered the phone frantically searching for a piece of paper and
pen to write down the funeral home and the date the funeral would be, then making sure we
told Dad that the funeral home had called.
There were many instances where that last part was not carried out. Eventually, Dad would find out the time and cemetery from
the funeral homes and what time the grave would be plotted out and the flags left to
show where to dig.
In winter, he would
first have to burn the frost from the ground.
This was initially done with many bags of charcoal, but he eventually
purchased a large grave-sized burner.
The grave-burning would happen the night before digging, and the digging
itself was pleasant once you got deep enough to have the warm burnt dirt on
all sides.
In the winter, the scorched
earth showed the length and width, but in the summer there was a wooden frame
that would be put down and spades would slice through the grass and dirt to
start. Large plywood boards were laid to
one side of the grave, for the dirt to be thrown on. The sod was removed first
in squares and placed discreetly behind the headstone and covered with AstroTurf. This gave way to the dark
heavy topsoil, then eventually the sand or clay. Some of the topsoil could be thrown into the
back of the truck, which was outfitted with a dump body, but most of the
topsoil was saved to be thrown back into the grave. The dirt beneath the topsoil was thrown into
the dumpbed and because the grave had grown deeper, throwing the dirt onto the truck
was hard. I was never very good at it
and preferred to throw the dirt onto the plywood. The dirt thrown onto the
truck would be taken and usually dumped in a remote location at the cemetery or
Tom would bring dirt home and fill in the potholes in our driveway.
Tom (our Dad) digging a grave in St. Mary's cemetary very close to his final resting place.
While digging you’d often see the vaults of
the already deceased. Our mom would tell
us a story of one of our uncles and our grandpa hitting a wooden coffin, and it
crumbling and dust tornadoing out from it.
I once hit an old well while digging, but mostly it was bottles and
cans. After finishing the grave, the pile of dirt would be covered with AstroTurf and the area swept clean.
The filling-in part was much easier. We would arrive at the graveyard and find the
vaultman. He was always in his truck
parked either down a dirt road close to the cemetery or in the cemetery off of the main drive.
We would sit in the car, drinking
coffee, eating donuts, doing the crossword puzzle and listening to the public
radio station. Eventually the family would leave the grave site after the service ended. First the vaultman drove up to the grave site, and then we would
follow. Tom, and I’m sure my grandpa and
uncles before him, would help the vaultman lower the coffin into the large cement vault that had been placed in the grave the previous day.
When my younger brother Timmy was about four, his
snowsuit got caught on the coffin lowering pulley, and it wrenched his arm around
and ended up with a broken arm. About a week later, Timmy was
in a pillowcase jumping around the house with a broken arm and fell and broke his nose. I thought of this every time, thereafter, when
I watched the vaultman lower the coffin.
Tom would often fill in the graves by himself
or take one of us with him. One time,
my sister Mary and I were filling in with him, and she stabbed me in the ankle with a
shovel while trying to get a scoop of dirt to fill in the grave.
After filling in and stomping on the grave to settle the dirt, the sod
would be returned in exactly the same place it was removed from. Then we would water the grave, return the
plywood and shovels to the truck, and clean the grave until it looked almost
exactly as it had before.
Most of the graveyards that Tom and our Grandpa dug in were
in Freeborn County, where my grandparent’s farm was. Often on the drive home from seeing my
grandparents, we would stop to see how Tom was doing and how soon he’d be
home. In those instances, we’d slowly get
out of the car, maybe help, maybe wander around the graveyard. Once, the day after prom, when I had not slept
all night, my Mom drove Timmy, my boyfriend (Jonathan), and I to the
graveyard. I found a shaded spot to
sleep, while my uncle Kevin, in only his American flag boxers
taught Jonathan how to juggle as he stood in the freshly dug grave.
Whenever an O'Leary has died, the
grave has been dug by many of family members.
My Grandpa died a few days after Christmas, and we all bundled up and
visited Tom and the uncles as they dug the grave into the night. They placed a bottle of Jameson near the bottom of the grave before filling it in to enjoy in the future when they buried my Grandma. It was my Uncle John’s idea to bury the bottle, but he
was unable to enjoy it as he passed away before my Grandma and never got the chance to imbibe.
The biggest digging party was that for my Dad’s grave.
It was a beautiful, warm October day.
At least fifty family members, friends, and
former grave-digging partners of Tom's showed up.
Everyone took a turn in the grave.
The next day at the funeral we had to limit the
shovelfuls of dirt mourners threw in, so everyone could get their turn at honoring Dad.
When I tell people about the
funeral, they remark that it had never occurred to them to dig their family
member’s grave.
I can’t imagine not
digging it.
Our friend Jeff and his brother helping dig Tom's grave.
Kate’s three children, Ruby, Keavagh, and Saul are not
annoying. They are three of my best friends. Ruby lives in England, Keavagh lives in
Sacramento and Saul lives in Chicago. I
am so lucky to have them in my life.
When I travel I stay with them. The three open their homes to me and share
their lives. I have a deep connection with my cousins. Before Keavagh moved to Sacramento I had
adventures with her and her brother Saul in Chicago; from eating out, going to
museums and the onesie pajama birthday bar crawls. 
