Rutherford Weekly

OUR 23 rd YEAR • ISSUE NO. 35 • SEPTEMBER 3, 2015 RutherfordWeekly.com 828-248-1408 FREE FREE WE WISH EVERYONE A SAFE & HAPPY LABOR DAY! WE WISH EVERYONE A SAFE & HAPPY LABOR DAY! ©Community First Media Community First Media Mon-Sat 11am-6pm E Juice • Glass Pipes T-shirts • & More 719 S. Broadway, Forest City Right off Exit 182 from US74 828-229-3123 Above, the Mode-McEntire Cemetery following restoration. At left, the cemetery before family and community worked to restore it. One man's love for family history has led him to encourage other relatives to work together to restore a family cemetery. Scott Wesson and his sister, Lynn Wesson, are into genealogy, and in October 2012 came across information on their relative William McEntire's grave. Seeing the cemetery was in disrepair, Wesson contacted his distant cousin, Kay Powell, who knew how to reach the cemetery. "The cemetery had been logged and destroyed," Wesson said. "My first time seeing it was heartbreaking." During that first visit family members were able to get through the weeds and briars and locate a few headstones. After talking with the property owner, Wesson began working to restore the cemetery. Over the course of the spring of 2013, donations came in from people who were descended from those buried there. To find out whose final resting places might be there, Wesson researched the history of the land as well as contacted local historians. The graves, he learned, date back to the late 1700s to mid-1880s. "We went through a process over a period of a couple of years of fully cleaning it up," Wesson said. "We got the field stones picked back up that had been knocked over, and applied for several veterans' markers. Also during this time, he continued to contact more and more people to learn who was buried in the cemetery. "In the end, we located 144 graves where we thought there would be maybe 20," he said. Spaces and unmarked graves were located by probing, and those fieldstones that couldn't be reset were replaced. Wesson and other family members wanted to preserve the cemetery after it was restored and have markers to let people know whose family was buried there. "As we gained more support and reached out to more people, one of our relatives in Polk County knew of Chris Cochran of Goode Monument in Rutherfordton. We were told we could talk to him about what we wanted to do," Wesson said. Cochran became interested in the project and provided materials at cost. "It was important to that family, and it was something I wanted to do and God led me to it," Cochran said. Family cemeteries play an important part in our history, Cochran continued. "There are cemeteries just like that one all over the place. I remember when I was an agriculture student at Polk-Central High School, we visited a cemetery that was covered over like that. If you didn't take that class, you probably didn't know about it." Cochran provided a War of 1812 monument for one of the graves as well as other pieces. Additionally, he engraved the names of 17 people who are believed to be buried there who don't have headstones. Those names are on granite posts strung with wire around the border of the cemetery. The cemetery - the Mode-McEntire Community Cemetery - is now protected and has been registered with the county. Any donations that continue to be given will be used to maintain the cemetery. The cemetery is located off N.C. 226 on Elliott Farm Road. For more information, visit http://www.ncgenweb.us/cleveland/ mode-mc.htm. Mode-McEntire cemetery Mode-McEntire cemetery restored with the help of restored with the help of family and community family and community Community site seeks donations to preserve web presence Articles By: Allison Flynn • allison@rutherfordweekly.com Articles By: Allison Flynn • allison@rutherfordweekly.com The history of one small textile community in Rutherford County continues through the generations online. Now, the website's founders are seeking funding to continue the site into the future. Reno and Betty Bailey of Charlotte began the Remember Cliffside website 13 years ago as a way to keep themselves busy in retirement. They chose to create a memorabilia site about Reno's hometown and expected there would be a few pages of pictures and articles. The contributions from the community, however, soon made the site grow and grow and new material is regularly created and discovered. The site, the Baileys say, has become a repository for all things Cliffside - its history, genealogy, profiles and life in the mill village. However, the site needs to be modernized in order to be responsive to tablets and phones and to convert it to Wordpress platform. In the years ahead, the couple said, this would future proof the site and make maintaining it easier and less expensive. To raise funds to update and maintain the site, the couple has created campaign on indiegogo.com. The purpose of the campaign is to raise funds to hire one or more coding experts to develop custom Wordpress themes and layouts for the new version of the site and to apply PHP/MYSql methodology to new and existing elements; hire one or more people to convert the pages and photos to the new platform; and pay hosting fees and domain name renewals for the next decade. The fundraising goal is $18,000. Donations are tax deductible. For more information, go to indiegogo.com and search for "Cliffside."

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