• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Library of Lore for Cliffside, North Carolina

Since 2002

Remember Cliffside

History
MENUMENU
  • Home
  • Explore
    • Galleries
    • History
    • In The News
    • Landmarks
    • Media
    • Memories
    • Odds & Ends
    • Photos of the Month
    • Rutherford County
    • Society
    • Where People Lived
  • What's New
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Where are we?
  • Guest Book
  • Contact Us
  • Search
  • Help
  • Donate
Home » History » Special Projects » Family Stories » Joseph Bailey » About Benjamin & Lucinda Bailey
Family Stories

About Benjamin & Lucinda Bailey

Benjamin Bailey's tombstone
Benjamin’s Tombstone at Mt. Vernon

When I first began looking into my own history, I knew nothing beyond three generations of my Bailey ancestry. Upon learning from an uncle that my great-great-grandfather, Benjamin, was buried at Mt. Vernon, a community north of Forest City in Rutherford county, I rushed to find his grave (shown at left). The family of his youngest son, Phillip, was buried nearby, but nowhere could I find evidence of a grave for his wife, Lucinda Braddy.

That very day, we happened to visit my aunt, Ruth Rollins Bailey, who was then 94 years old. I told her of our visit to the grave site and wondered why his wife Lucy was not buried with her husband. “Well, I can tell you why,” she said, and she did:

On Benjamin’s tombstone:

God my redeemer lives,
And ever from the skies,
Looks down and watches my dust
Till he shall bid it rise

When Lucy died, in February 1905, fourteen years after Benjamin passed on, she was living with a daughter in Shelby. After the funeral service, a horse-drawn wagon bearing her coffin set out to Mt. Vernon Church for the interment.

It was a snowy day, and by the time the wagon reached Wall’s Church north of Ellenboro, the storm became so bad they could go no further. The party decided to bury Lucy then and there at Wall’s. If the thought was to later move her to Mt. Vernon, that was never done. She lies at Wall’s to this day, near the graves of several of her children who obviously chose to spend eternity with their mother.

The moral of this account: whenever you’re around elderly relatives, talk to them, ask questions, find out what they may remember about the past.

—Reno Bailey

 

 

Primary Sidebar

The Cliffside Clock Tower

Our town clock was installed in 1920, and for over half a century tolled the quarter hours from atop the R. R. Haynes Memorial Building. When the building was razed in the late 1970s this new tower for the old timepiece was erected on the site of Mr. Haynes' original Cliffside home. Although the property of the county, the Cliffside Historical Society has assumed responsibility for maintaining this beloved antique.

© 2002–2023 · Cliffside Historical SocietyScroll To Top