Item Information
Title
Carolyn Wallace's Reflection on Smith Family Visit
Creator
Wallace, Carolyn
Date
February 20, 1986
Contributor
Wallace, Carolyn
Rights
https://rightsstatements.org/page/CNE/1.0/?language=en
Type
Text
Text
I met Dr. Pauli Murray in April 1978 when I visited her home in Alexandria to discuss the possible acquisition of manuscripts for the Southern Historical Collection. The outcome was that when she came to Chapel Hill on May 15 to discuss with Mr. George T. Cole some papers of Mary Ruffin Smith and her family and to talk with members of the University administration about the condition of the Smith family graveyard in Chatham County, I was her hostess. I picked her up at the home of a relative in Durham and took her to the former Smith residence, then the home of Mr. Cole, meeting there Mr. Charles Antle, Associate Vice-Chancellor for Business.
Mr. Cole hospitably showed us around the house and gave to Dr. Murray about seventy original manuscripts of the Smith family, which she passed on to me and to add to the Mary Ruffin Smith Papers that Mr. Cole has placed in the Southern Historical Collection several years earlier. Mr. Cole then went with us to the Smith graveyard, about nine miles south in Chatham County.
We turned off of 15-501 onto Mount Gilead Road and parked, as Mr. Cole directed, at a private home. The cemetery was entirely surrounded by private land and was not accessible by a public road. Mr. Cole guided us through a pine woods, through a fence and along it in the pasture of one interested cow for some distance, through a gate, up a patch to an old roadbed, and up the old roadbed to the cemetery. The only direct descendants of the family were Pauli Murray and her relatives, and the cemetery had been untended for many years. We could not have found it without the help of Mr. Cole and were grateful for his interest in the family and for his assistance.
A large cedar and several smaller trees had grown up in the enclosure, and honeysuckle and poison ivy were everywhere, covering the ground and hanging from the trees. It was a rainy day and the vines were wet and dangerous to tough. Although I am not highly susceptible to poison ivy, I am not immune and treat it with respect. That day I was terrified of it and of snakes and kept warning the other three to be careful. Grateful for my knee-high rain boots, I kept to a relatively clear path as much as I could and dodged the hanging vines. Mr. Cole, on the other hand, declared that poison ivy never troubled him and evidently snaked did not either. He brushed away the vines to reveal the inscriptions on the grave stones or to raise those knocked down by tree roots, while I recorded the inscriptions. The oldest stone that could be read was dated 1811 and the latest was that of Mary Ruffin Smith in 1885.
By the time we left we were ready for lunch, but I felt that I needed nothing so much as a bath. That was not then possible, but I took Pauli—by then we were on a first name basis—home with me so that we could wash exposed surfaces and lunch there. I knew nothing about methods of preventing poison ivy rash but felt sure something drastic was needed. The only thing I could think of was to wash with diluted Chlorox. Pauli was game but laughingly accused me of trying to bleach her. I replied that if that worked I would use it regularly on my freckles.
Later in the afternoon I took Pauli to the Business Office in South Building, where she persuaded Vice-Chancellor Temple and Mr. Antle that the University has a responsibility to repair the family cemetery of Mary Ruffin Smith, a substantial benefactor of the University. I heard later that it fell to Mr. Antle’s lot to get the work done, and he had to make several more trips to the place. I have since learned that washing with Chlorox is not a recommended prevention for the effects of exposure to poison ivy, but Pauli and I did not get the rash, while Charles Antle said he did every time he went. Pauli wrote, “’4 Humans and A Cow’ - what a story. "
Carolyn Wallace
February 20, 1986
Mr. Cole hospitably showed us around the house and gave to Dr. Murray about seventy original manuscripts of the Smith family, which she passed on to me and to add to the Mary Ruffin Smith Papers that Mr. Cole has placed in the Southern Historical Collection several years earlier. Mr. Cole then went with us to the Smith graveyard, about nine miles south in Chatham County.
We turned off of 15-501 onto Mount Gilead Road and parked, as Mr. Cole directed, at a private home. The cemetery was entirely surrounded by private land and was not accessible by a public road. Mr. Cole guided us through a pine woods, through a fence and along it in the pasture of one interested cow for some distance, through a gate, up a patch to an old roadbed, and up the old roadbed to the cemetery. The only direct descendants of the family were Pauli Murray and her relatives, and the cemetery had been untended for many years. We could not have found it without the help of Mr. Cole and were grateful for his interest in the family and for his assistance.
A large cedar and several smaller trees had grown up in the enclosure, and honeysuckle and poison ivy were everywhere, covering the ground and hanging from the trees. It was a rainy day and the vines were wet and dangerous to tough. Although I am not highly susceptible to poison ivy, I am not immune and treat it with respect. That day I was terrified of it and of snakes and kept warning the other three to be careful. Grateful for my knee-high rain boots, I kept to a relatively clear path as much as I could and dodged the hanging vines. Mr. Cole, on the other hand, declared that poison ivy never troubled him and evidently snaked did not either. He brushed away the vines to reveal the inscriptions on the grave stones or to raise those knocked down by tree roots, while I recorded the inscriptions. The oldest stone that could be read was dated 1811 and the latest was that of Mary Ruffin Smith in 1885.
By the time we left we were ready for lunch, but I felt that I needed nothing so much as a bath. That was not then possible, but I took Pauli—by then we were on a first name basis—home with me so that we could wash exposed surfaces and lunch there. I knew nothing about methods of preventing poison ivy rash but felt sure something drastic was needed. The only thing I could think of was to wash with diluted Chlorox. Pauli was game but laughingly accused me of trying to bleach her. I replied that if that worked I would use it regularly on my freckles.
Later in the afternoon I took Pauli to the Business Office in South Building, where she persuaded Vice-Chancellor Temple and Mr. Antle that the University has a responsibility to repair the family cemetery of Mary Ruffin Smith, a substantial benefactor of the University. I heard later that it fell to Mr. Antle’s lot to get the work done, and he had to make several more trips to the place. I have since learned that washing with Chlorox is not a recommended prevention for the effects of exposure to poison ivy, but Pauli and I did not get the rash, while Charles Antle said he did every time he went. Pauli wrote, “’4 Humans and A Cow’ - what a story. "
Carolyn Wallace
February 20, 1986