CLEVELAND, Tenn. — The final words from generations of pioneers, slaves and Indians are fading into the briars and brush in forgotten or neglected cemeteries.

Debbie Moore, a Bradley County educator, and a small band of friends and family wade through brush using history and genealogy books, GPS readings and local memories to find the stones where those memories are written.

On a recent day, Ms. Moore, retired teacher Ruth Bailey and Boy Scout Corey Smithy climbed a hill in southern Bradley County to look for headstones in the Goodner family cemetery. Corey was also exploring the site before taking on his community project to become an Eagle Scout.

But the story begins in another Bradley County cemetery.

One woman bequeathed $600,000 to maintain her Swann family cemetery. The Valley View Ruritan Club took on the task.

“They asked me, just as a favor, to come in and inventory and do research to make sure everybody we know was buried there still had their tombstones,” Ms. Moore said as she and the others scrambled over a rusted fence and into the underbrush covering the Goodner family plot.

She has done lots of genealogy research and written several histories for her own family.

LOST HISTORY

Her quest has taken Ms. Moore to dozens cemeteries, surrounded and cut off by Bradley County’s residential growth. She plans to write a guide book, the first such volume in decades. A former educator, E.L. Ross, documented 85 cemeteries years ago.

Ms. Moore made a presentation to the local genealogy society. Ms. Bailey invited her to come look at the cemetery behind her house, the Goodner Cemetery. From there, the death tour, as Ms. Moore’s children call it, began.

“Ruth and I go around and document who’s buried where,” Ms. Moore said. Occasionally they recruit friends and family.

At the Goodner site, brush, saplings and ground-covering plants disguised or hid the graves of the family, their neighbors and relatives. From history and genealogy books, Ms. Moore knows some of the names are from Cherokee who married into the family. She suspects, but there’s no evidence so far, there may be slaves buried on the hilltop, too.

“What we have here is a typical southern Appalachian family cemetery. Everybody in this cemetery, their head is going west and feet are going east because the Bible says the son of God will come from the east to collect his people,” Ms. Moore said. “The only variance I see is when the first person may be buried according to where the sun rose on that day. But you can pretty much set your compass by it.”

The last time the Goodner Cemetery was cleared was about 50 years ago, according to neighborhood memory, Ms. Bailey said.

Corey planned to organize his Scout troop, Troop 44, to clear the brush, maybe right some fallen stones and mark the sunken grave spots where the names have been obliterated by time and weather.

Ms. Moore said saplings need to be removed, but groundcovers should stay to smother weeds.

Some plants actually mark a grave.

In the late 19th century, survivors lovingly left plants as memorials. On this hilltop, a yucca plant still struggles beneath large trees.

Two Civil War veterans lie at rest among the 50 or so obscured graves.

And there’s Millie.

Corey and Ms. Bailey rubbed chalk on a broken rock. The name, Millie Martis, popped into view. But there seemed to be more than that.

Corey sat on the ground, flicking away a tick, and looked closer. He saw a small letter “c.” Her name was McArtis. But there were other lines scrambling around the rock.

Ms. Bailey studied the rock while the rest moved around in the brush, uncovering head- and footstones and speculating on the lives they represent.

Then Ms. Bailey called them back to Millie’s rock.

The marks had revealed themselves to her. There was a neckline for a dress. There was a locket or necklace. There were shoulders and maybe braided hair.

At the top of the rock, the head was gone, probably broken off long ago.

No doubt there are black family cemeteries like this, too, Ms. Moore said. She wants to talk with local families and hear their stories and memories about where more ancestors may be.

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