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Love Cemetery explores race relations in Texas |
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 Historians study it. Philosophers debate it. Parents and grandparents are accused of living in it. The blunt truth is, though, the past is just that – past.
Done.
Over.
Or is it? Author China Galland knows as well as anyone that what’s done is done. But she also knows that when a community comes together, relationships can be forged and the past can be healed.
In her new book, Love Cemetery, she writes about how a search for her ancestors uncovered a graveyard’s worth of long-buried ties, misunderstandings, and hurts that needed to be unearthed in order to fix a few wrongs.
Galland grew up in Dallas, but spent much of her childhood at her grandfather’s nursery business in East Texas. She says she and her cousins knew the land like they knew their own faces, but there was a lot they
didn’t know.
As an adult, Galland wanted to learn her family history. After examining documents and hearing local lore from both black and white residents, Galland discovered, to her shock, that the land her grandfather owned – the land she had so enjoyed as a child – had once been stolen from African-American farmers. Galland felt horrible.
She felt even worse when an elderly friend showed her an unmarked cemetery that the friend claimed held the bodies of slaves. The woman made an offhand racial comment that struck Galland to her core.
At about this same time, Galland was introduced to a woman who took her to a gate in the middle of a Texas field. The gate was locked. It shouldn’t have been there in the first place, she learned. Behind the gate at the end of the clay road, beneath tall wisteria and weeds, lay the ancestors of many African-Americans who still lived in the area. Love Cemetery, so named because the land came from a woman named Della Love, was in a terrible state of disrepair.
So, Galland learned, were race relations in her beloved corner of East Texas.
Although Love Cemetery is a pretty small book (just over 200 pages of story), I was surprised at what’s packed in it. Galland delves deep into history as she uncovers the surprising tangle of family ties, both black and white, that are wrapped up in the cemetery she helped restore. This history is really fascinating, especially to anyone who studies genealogy.
On the other hand, Galland sometimes gets a little too new-agey in her narrative. Her musings on racism are many and her writing is a little scattered. I wanted to read more about the people involved in making Love Cemetery whole again, and less on Galland’s own feelings about black-white relationships. I also felt a little cheated at the ending of this book, mostly because it’s not there.
Still, if you’re exploring your own roots, if you love history, or if you find yourself examining the question
of race, then you’ll enjoy this quick-to-read book.
Love Cemetery is a book you’ll want to dig up soon.
Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was 3 years old and she never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books.
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