A strange thing happened at the Strange Cemetery

Mathews Babies
Strange Methodist Cemetery
Strange, Louisiana


It's funny how you can live all of your life and think you know all about your family who belongs in it, but then you don't. My mom, sister and my youngest went what we call "cemetery hoppin'" early in the summer. My mom is the lone survivor of the Riddle family, the last one left behind, now the keeper of the family stories. My Aunt Grace, the most glamorous and an absolute clean-freak Riddle girl, had had two babies not make it much past their hour of birth. I had no idea until we were headed down the logging trails of the Jackson/Bienville/Natchitoches parishes and my mom said, "Let's go to the Strange Cemetery where Grace's and John's babies are buried." I had little cousins I never knew about! Well after zipping down this road and that, we finally found the way to the little Strange Methodist Church tucked away in a haze of driven over dusty roads and little hills and many trees. The old section is across the street from the church with a horse gate as point of entry. I was determined to get into this section even if it meant squeezing between barbed wire or scaling over the huge gate. I had to meet my cousin/babies! My mom could not remember where the little boys were buried, but I was grateful for the shady section in 100 plus degree Louisiana heat so I could roam the rows. Okay, too much about all the suffering I endure while grave walking, I did find the babies and I absolutely was enthralled at their tiny little homemade sandstone markers. I'd never seen markers like those and from what I remember about sandstone in geology 101, it will eventually erode away. When I took the shot of Billy G. Mathews and moved over to take the other baby's, my camera went a little nuts and kept taking photos with my finger off the shutter button. Okay, weird, never happened before or since...then I load the pics on my computer and guess what? The computer shut down not once, but twice. I then go to their Find-A-Grave memorial (someone had already done their page, but I added the photo), and my computer froze. To the left is one of the shots my camera took by itself. Here's the inscriptions from the graves:

Billy G. Mathews Infant of
Son of John John and Grace
and Grace Mathews Mathews
Born 1933
Aug 4 1935
Died
Aug 20 1935