Forever Dixie: A Field Guide to Southern Cemeteries and Their Residents
Synopsis:
When author/photographer Douglas Keister's book Stories in Stone came out in 2004, Sunset magazine stated, "Keister has done for cemetery exploration what Audubon did for birding." Since then, cemetery fans have been clamoring for more. Keister has answered them with Forever Dixie, an exploration of thirteen of the South's best cemeteries and forty notable southerners who have chosen to call the South their permanent home. Forever Dixie gives cemetery explorers GPS directions to the graves of famous southerners such as Martin Luther King Jr., Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, Colonel Sanders, Casey Jones, Johnny Mercer, and dozens more. Also featured are interesting and unique graves of ordinary citizens like Thelma Holford of Jonesboro, Arkansas, who commissioned an Italian marble statue of herself and her beloved dog, Bunnie. Forever Dixie is a great gift for all those who call America's southern states home and for those who may have moved but whose hearts, souls, and roots still live in the South.
Photographer/writer Douglas Keister has authored thirty-six critically acclaimed books, including the highly praised book on cemetery exploration, Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography, and Going Out in Style, a book about cemetery art and architecture. His twenty-five books on residential architecture include Inside the Bungalow, Storybook Style, Red Tile Style, Classic Cottages, and Cottages. Keister also writes and illustrates magazine articles and contributes photographs and essays to dozens of magazines, newspapers, books, calendars, posters, and greeting cards worldwide. He lives in Chico, California.
Book Excerpt:
There are few words that are as emotionally charged as Dixie. Depending on the audience and venue, Dixie can evoke warm feelings of hearth, home, patriotism and remembrance or bristly feelings of segregation, prejudice, arrogance and exclusion. The word Dixie first came into popular language when northerner Daniel Emmett published the song I Wish I Was in Dixie in 1859. The song has since been published under the title Dixie and Dixie’s Land. The name Dixie may have come from privately issued 10 dollar notes in Louisiana knows as Dix’s (the French word for 10) Other theories refer to the Mason Dixon Line and a purportedly kindly New York slave owner, Mr. Dixy
Nowadays Dixie is attached to a variety of things. There are Dixie Chicks, Dixie Cups (invented by a Bostonian), Winn-Dixie supermarkets, Dixieland Jazz bands, Dixiecrats (a portmanteau of fiercely southern politicians and democrats), the Dixie National Forest (in southern Utah) and a multitude of brands and services.
The geographic borders of Dixie are hard to pin down Most scholars agree that all of the states in the Deep South are part of Dixie, but even those scholars can’t agree on what comprises the Deep South. For the purpose of this book, we’ve placed the center of Dixie in northwestern Alabama and drawn a very wavy line around it. We’ve only included states where almost all of the state has a southern feel. Thus, we haven’t included the state that has the southern-most point in the continental United States, Florida. In fact, the further south one goes in Florida the more northern it seems to become. Wander into a grocery store in Miami Beach and you’re likely to find hush puppy mix in the exotic foods section. Another geographically southern state is Texas, but large parts of the Lone Star state are decidedly western in flavor. You’re more likely to find refried beans than black-eyed peas on the menu in El Paso. Missouri is another conundrum. Although parts of it are definitely southern (Dred Scott is buried in Bellfontaine cemetery in St. Louis) most of Missouri stretches too far north. What you will find in this book are the solidly southern states Virginia (Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy), North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky (that quintessential southern gentleman Col. Harland Sanders is buried in Louisville’s Cave Hill cemetery).
Ultimately Dixie is not defined so much as a geographic area as by the heart and soul of its people. Although we can’t possibly include every cemetery and every notable southerner in this modest tome, we have tried to capture the spirit of Dixie. That spirit may best be summed up by the words penned 150 years ago by a Yankee.
Chorus:
O, I wish I was in Dixie!
Hooray! Hooray!
In Dixie Land I'll take my stand
To live and die in Dixie
Away, away,
Away down south in Dixie!
Topics/Categories:
Cemeteries, graves, History, Pet Cemeteries, southern culture
Genre:
Type of Work:
Publishers:
Original Publish Date:
October 1, 2008
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