Belle of Calhoun

By John Crane, MD

Orphaned and abandoned at age 4, Belle knew one, and only one name until she was taken in at the home of widowed Mrs. Mueller, and she was happy and proud of the family name her "new momma" bestowed. She was abandoned yet again, however, a year later, when Mrs. Mueller died of heart failure and Belle was placed in an orphanage in St. Louis. There, she would meet her life-long friend and older "sister" Izzy and begin to develop the inner resilience she would need to cope with the many future blows she would encounter.

After a foster home in Calhoun County, Illinois was arranged for her, she traveled on the steamboat Belle of Calhoun to the home which would be hers for the next several years. There, she found the love of a mother with Mayme Follett, who cherished her as the child she was never able to have. Belle needed every bit of her developing strength, however, to cope with the anger and rejection of her foster father, Asa Follett.

When Belle started school, she met two brothers, Oscar and Omer Riley, who would provide an enduring friendship and safety from her foster father, and one of whom she would marry, her life-long love. She began to develop the inner strength of steel and a resolve which would carry her through the rest of her life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Crane, MD
• Release date: Nov 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370108534

John Crane, MD

John B. Crane, MD DLFAPA is a psychiatrist who has been in private practice since 1970. He closed his office in Washington, Missouri, in July 2012 and is now seeing patients part-time in an out-patient mental health clinic in Union, Missouri. Dr. Crane attended Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, did residencies in psychiatry at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis and the University of Iowa, in Iowa City. He is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and is a Distinguished Life Fellow in the American Psychiatric Association.Dr. Crane and his wife live on a small farm between Washington and Union. Mrs. Crane is a Certified Master Gardener, and Dr. Crane enjoys playing on his tractor and messing about in the sundry sailboats he and his sons have stashed here and there. Dr. Crane's oldest son is an Optometrist, the middle son is a physician specializing in sports and regenerative medicine, and the youngest is a computer and robotics engineer. The Cranes have seven grandchildren.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

AD 1320

A tall, slender dark-skinned man, dressed only in leather breechclout and moccasins, long black hair hanging to his shoulders, stood at the top of a high limestone bluff, gazing out in the direction of the sunrise. He was at the edge of the dense woods which carpeted this land for miles around: oak, hickory, walnut, pecan, all of which lent their bounty for his people and for the many animals they hunted for food and clothing.

It was summer, the morning air fresh and warm, and an eagle could be seen riding high above the river flowing far below. This was not the Great River – that one, the Father of Waters, was a long day’s walk in the direction of the sunset – but it was no less beautiful: clear, clean water which he knew held an abundance of fish and mussels; bright green willow trees along the banks which provided medicinal bark for his people as well as long, limber poles used to build their houses; and beyond the river, its floodplain, with plants where seeds could be gathered for food, reeds cut to fashion baskets; and the many small lakes which were dotted here and there, left from the river’s past floods. Ducks, geese and an occasional swan could be netted there.

Across the floodplain he could see plumes of smoke rising from morning cooking fires in his village, nestled against the far bluffs. He was a clan leader, a hunter, and had come to the Land Between The Rivers to hunt. He hoped to return to his village with meat for the pot which was always bubbling on his cook fire, though this land was mysterious and held many spirits, and he wondered whether they would hear his prayers for success. His people considered this land foreign from their own. It was almost completely surrounded by the two powerful rivers and only their shaman and their bravest hunters ventured here.

He picked up his spear, tipped with a long, narrow flint blade, and atlatl and touched the long knife secured at his waist, also razor-sharp flint. He checked the bag of jerky on his belt, but before he turned to enter the forest, his eyes swept the river and the valley once more, as far as he could see. He closed his eyes and, turning his face to the sun, muttered a brief prayer to the Spirits. The shaman of his village, who knew such things, told of many generations of his people in this land for moons uncountable. He thanked their spirits and knew that his people would dwell here forever.

CHAPTER 1

1908

No human, young or old, is prepared to watch another bleed to death. For Belle, who had watched her momma’s thinness and pallor worsen over the past year, it was almost anti-climactic. She had felt, since they left the worn-out farm in western Kentucky, a darkness coming. Her daddy had died there after something very like this, and now her momma was leaving as well.

In a dim canvas tent, she sat on a blanket with her aunt Annie, her momma’s sister, who was trying to shield her from her momma’s death by cradling her head and singing her a bed-time song. Her uncle Lester sat with his back against a box across the tent, picking at calluses on his hands.

***

Remnants of morning fog and smoke from a smoldering campfire hung over the makeshift camp-site: worn canvas tent, high-wheeled farm wagon with a rough canvas cover stretched over wooden bows, crowded with boxes, a barrel, and remnants of household furniture. Two tired-looking mules were tethered to a tree, one of a copse of small oaks on a carpet of red and brown and yellow leaves. Up a gentle slope lay a freshly-dug grave, mounded with dirt, already marked with a crude cross, two small boards lashed together with a cord. A name and date could be seen, uneven letters painted on the wood.

The camp was perched on a bluff facing east over a valley, a sizable creek at its foot, and it lay just off the Washington-Hermann Road, four days travel west of St. Louis. A couple of miles further to the west was a small village, apparently a steamboat and railroad stop: whistles could be heard, echoing up the creek valley from the Missouri river a mile or so down the creek.

Tent flaps parted and Lester emerged. He was a tall man, thin and young, working toward old. He was dressed in well-worn farmer’s clothes: battered slouch hat, shapeless gray shirt tucked into a pair of dark trousers cinched with a wide leather belt, themselves tucked into a pair of down-at-the-heels leather boots. He was unshaven, and his face was drawn and worried.

He stretched and walked wearily over to the wagon where he leaned on his outstretched arms against its rough side. His head drooped forward between his arms and he kicked aimlessly at the dirt until a young woman clad in a long, patched dress, which had once apparently displayed a bright flowered pattern, came out of the tent and walked to him, placing her hand on his back.

What you reckon we oughta do? Annie asked sadly. Belle’s done gone t’sleep. Least she didn’t see Ivy’s last breath.

We cain’t take her with us, Annie he said. It was hard enough with her sick momma… an’ what if she comes down with the consumption too?

Annie stepped back from him, her face stricken. What are you sayin’, Lester? We cain’t leave her behind! Just like we couldn’t leave her and Ivy behind neither after Charles died. How kin you say that?

He looked around at her, his expression flat. We cain’t take her. Kansas is a long way yit. Maybe when we git settled we could send fer her…

That don’t make no sense, said Annie, her voice rising. You jist gonna drive off and leave her?

Oh, hell no, he said, his back still turned to her. When Belle an’ I rode the mule into that litlle town west’a here – New Haven – yesterday, we met a woman at the steamboat landing that seemed mighty taken with her.

Mainly to get Belle to stop crying, he had taken the child and ridden one of the mules into town and there, leaving the main road, they followed the sound of a train whistle down a steep, winding street to the main part of town. It was nestled between railroad tracks which ran next to a looming bluff, and the river a couple of blocks beyond, where he could see what looked like a steamboat landing, empty now except for several people who appeared to be waiting for a boat, standing near scattered crates and valises. He had pondered his situation as he and the child made their way into town, neither of them speaking, the silence interrupted only by an occasional quiet sob from Belle.

Don’t help none to cry, he said. Yer momma’s gone to a better place now, an’ you gotta git along without ‘er. He had formed the beginnings of a plan as they plodded slowly into town, deciding it might work to seek out someone there who’d be sympathetic to their plight, and as they approached the steamboat landing, he spotted a woman standing back from the others whom he thought might just be the one: grandmotherly-looking, she appeared to be about fifty, clad in a neat, long black dress with a white collar, and she did not appear to be part of the small group waiting for the steamboat. He and Belle dismounted and he tried to strike up a conversation with the woman.

I used to work on them steamboats, on the Ohio. Hard work, not much pay. An’ now the railroads ‘bout took all the freight.

The woman turned to him. She was about to comment on the increasing number of trains coming through New Haven and how loud they were at all hours of the day and night, but her attention had immediately focused on Belle. She asked her how old she was.

The child held up one hand, fingers spread. This many, I think she said solemnly. My momma died.

I reckon she’s ‘bout four, said Lester.

Shaken, the woman’s hand flew to her mouth and she stooped and took Belle’s hands in hers.

How? She looked up at Lester. What on earth…

We’s camped on that bluff east of here, up over the crick. Most likely she had the consumption.

Stricken, the woman pulled Belle to her. Oh, you poor, dear little thing. She held her out at arm’s length.

She looks awfully thin and pale. Are you sure she’s not consumptive?

Reckon not, said Lester. She ain’t been coughin’ up no blood. This last year’s been rough since we left Kentuck’. We ain’t rich people, and jist a job here’n there don’t buy much food. I even worked a year on the wharf in St. Louie, loadin’ them boats. We lived in our tent along the river, but still couldn’ save much. An’ it was cold… hard on her momma.

The woman stood up, still holding Belle’s hand. How in the world will you raise this child without your wife?

Ain’t my child, he said. She’s my wife’s niece. Her daddy died ‘fore we left Kentuck’ and we brought her and her momma with us. Her name’s Belle.

Oh, my. The woman bent and took Belle into her arms. Oh, my. What’s to become of you, orphaned at five years old?

Don’t reckon you’d know somebody’d take ‘er… she cain’t go with us. She’s poorly arready, and we got a long ways t’go, maybe all the way to Kansas. But I reckon we’ll come back and git her sometime. I don’t want her in no damn orphan place.

After a moment, the woman straightened up, appearing to have come to a decision.

I am Mrs. Mueller, she said, extending her hand to Lester. My daughter and I run a rooming house just down the street, and we are well thought of in New Haven. Belle would have a good and safe place with us until you can come back for her.

Name’s Lester, he said, and shook her hand. It hurts me, Ma’am, to have to do this, he said quietly. It didn’t, really. The child was an unwanted burden to him. I reckon I hafta talk it over with the wife first.

Of course, said Mrs. Mueller. If you decide you wish to do this – and for her sake I hope you do – bring Belle to our home. She pointed to a neat, two-story house a block or so down the graveled street.

Belle looked on impassively. As young as she was, she could understand at least part of what she was hearing, and she was confused by it. She barely remembered leaving Kentucky and parts of the slow, difficult trip to St. Louis. Living along the riverfront with other equally poor people had scared her: she felt safer the little time Uncle Lester was around. Even though her momma was there, she was too sick to do much, and Aunt Annie was out a good part of the time searching for what little food she could afford. She was torn. Here was this nice, warm woman who smelled good, offering her a place to stay that wasn’t a drafty tent or a punishing wagon.

They had returned to their camp where, after a terrible, tearful argument, her aunt gave in to her uncle’s angry demands. The next day they broke camp, hitched the mules to the wagon, and after Belle spent a tearful moment beside her momma’s grave, they drove into New Haven, where Lester pulled to the side of the road.

Reckon I’ll leave you up here, he said to Annie. They’s a steep hill down to the river and I reckon the mules couldn’t pull us out.

Trying not to cry, Annie embraced Belle. We’ll come back fer you real soon, she whispered. I promise.

Carrying her meager belongings in a worn cloth sack, Belle walked with Lester down to Mrs. Mueller’s house on the riverfront. There, after a brief hug and another promise that he and her aunt would come get her someday soon, Lester walked away. It would be the last that Belle would ever see of him or Aunt Annie.

CHAPTER 2

Belle missed her family and for a while she was sure they would come back for her. She settled into the Mueller household after several weeks, though, and as the memory of her momma and aunt and uncle faded, she and Mrs. Mueller became close. Belle began to talk to her more freely, at first about inconsequential things, but then one day as they were sitting looking at a book together, she quietly said, I miss my momma. Mrs. Mueller marked her place in the book and put her arm around Belle’s small shoulders, pulling her close.

Of course you do, dear, she said. Do you remember a lot about her?

No ma’am, said Belle. Not much. Mainly she was awful sick with the cough an’ then she died.

Mrs. Mueller saw tears in Belle’s eyes and felt relieved somehow. The child hadn’t yet risked much about her feelings of any kind, happy or sad, and perhaps she was becoming comfortable enough to do so now.

We done buried ‘er out yonder, said Belle. I ain’t sure where.

Your uncle told me you had camped out by a creek east of town, on the bluff. Do you recall that?

A li’l bit, said Belle. Momma was so sick I didn’ look around much. But I did look at her grave ‘fore we come here.

After a moment’s thought, Mrs. Mueller asked, Would you like to try to find it? Her grave? If it’s on the bluff, perhaps we can locate it. Is it marked?

Yes’m, I think so. I think they was a cross on it. Kin we go see?

First thing tomorrow, dear, said Mrs. Mueller.

***

The area on the bluff was wooded, and Belle only vaguely remembered where they had camped. I think it was thataway, she said, pointing to the south side of the road.

Was it close to the bluff? Could you see out over the creek? asked Mrs. Mueller as they walked into the woods.

I think so, said Belle. I was in the tent with momma most’a the time. They was a pile of dirt a bit away from the tent. Aunt Annie done put a cross on.

Mrs. Mueller first spotted the blackened remains of an old campfire and then, looking around, what could have been a grave, sunken in the center now. What had apparently been a worn wooden cross lay in the leaves at one end, two small flat boards with a name painted in uneven white letters.

As she and Belle stood over the grave, the child’s evident sadness turned to tears, and she sank to her knees. Her tears gave way to a wail of grief and desperate sobbing.

Mrs. Mueller, crying now as well, knelt next to her and pulled her small, shaking body to her. Cry as much as you need, dear child, she said, her voice shaking. Let your mama know you miss her.

Belle’s tears slowed gradually, and she looked at the cross. That there’s my momma’s name, I think.

Mrs. Mueller reached over to retrieve the boards and was scraping a few dried oak leaves from the grave when she saw the unmistakable shape of the ears of an arrowhead, and pulled it out of the ground. Rubbing off the dirt with her fingers, she held it up to Belle. Do you know what this is?

Belle took it and inspected it carefully. Some kind’a funny-lookin’ rock, she said.

It’s an Indian arrowhead, said Mrs. Mueller. A perfect one.

Belle looked at it more carefully and spit on it to clean it further. These was on In-din arrows? They was In-dins ‘roun’ here?

Oh my, yes, said Mrs. Mueller. Hundreds of years ago, before we white people came and drove them away. She smiled at Belle. Perhaps we could see it as a special message from your momma.

I reckon that’d make me feel real good, said Belle. She picked up the cross. I reckon this was momma’s name?

Ivy, said Mrs. Mueller. Another name was there but was illegible.

I ‘member that name, said Belle. That’s what my Auntie Annie called ‘er.

Oh my, exclaimed Mrs. Mueller. Belle, I’m so terribly sorry. I feel so… ignorant. In all the fuss, I never even learned your last name. What’s the matter with me… why in the world haven’t I thought of this before? Can you tell me what it is?

Belle shook her head. Don’t reckon I kin, she said. I ain’t sure I ever heared it.

The child was truly orphaned, bereft even of a name. We’ll need to see to that, Mrs. Mueller said, and do something about it.

As she gazed at the cross, a thought came to her. I have a friend in another town, Hermann, she said, a stonemason. We can’t move your mama’s grave, but we can mark it better.

After a few weeks, a limestone slab stood at the head of the grave with one name, Ivy, in the center, surrounded by an intricate pattern of ivy leaves. The stonemason, moved by Belle’s story, had put his best work into it.

***

Mrs. Mueller and her daughter Mary, a single woman in her 20s, ran the rooming house in New Haven with some success. It stood on Front Street facing the Missouri river, in the middle of a block of smaller homes and shops. It was of two stories, a large porch extending across the front on which there was a wide swing and a couple of green-painted rocking chairs. Its clapboards were whitewashed and had been well-kept, and dark green shutters flanked its many windows. Lilac bushes stood on either side of a flat stone path leading from the unpaved street to the porch and a small orchard could be seen to the rear of the house.

The Muellers and their only child had enjoyed the house, even though it was much too large for them. Mr. Mueller, the oldest son, had inherited it from his parents, whose numerous children had filled the several bedrooms upstairs. Now they were grown and gone, most living in nearby towns, and after Mr. Mueller’s death, Mrs. Mueller, unwilling to leave this home where she had been so happy and comfortable, decided to rent the upstairs bedrooms to salesmen and others who came through town on the train or, less often now, on a steamboat, stopping for a day or two and needing a place to stay. New Haven was small and had only one other hotel, a worn-looking, dilapidated building on Main Street, facing the railroad tracks. She and her daughter served breakfast and dinner to their boarders in the large dining room. Their own bedrooms were in the rear of the house, behind the kitchen. The two of them had always worked well together since Mr. Mueller passed, about 10 years before, but Mary was not happy with her mother taking Belle into their home. She was especially put off when she heard her mother’s decision to give her their name, Mueller.

Why in the world would you do that? she asked. An orphan, dropped on our doorstep by people we didn’t know, who aren’t coming back for her, I’m sure. It simply doesn’t seem right.

Mary, said Mrs. Mueller, you’re my only child and your father died when you were young. When I first met Belle, I had a terrible thought: what if I had died as well and left you an orphan?

It’s not the same, Mary insisted. We have family nearby that I could have turned to.

And this child has no-one, said Mrs. Mueller. Do you really think I believed that man when he said he’d come back for her? She paused. His eyes told me he cared little or nothing for the child. And anyway, it’s settled. She carries our name.

Belle wasn’t sure why she needed two names, but it seemed important to Mrs. Mueller, and she felt somehow more comfortable and welcomed with it.

It’s a name you can be proud of, she had told Belle. It goes back to my husband’s grandfather, James Mueller. He settled the town and named it Mueller’s Landing. He cut wood for the many steamboats that came through. Then his son, my husband’s father, worked in the business, and so my husband did as well. She felt the old sadness again. That’s how he died, she said quietly. A limb fell from a tree he was cutting – they call them widow-makers, surely for good reason – and he didn’t live long enough to be carried out of the woods. She shook her head. But those are things long past, and they don’t bear dwelling upon. And now we have a brand-new member of the Mueller family!

Yes, ma’am, said Belle. I reckon I like that.

***

Several months passed in a pleasant blur for Belle. She still dimly remembered being hungry and cold and unhappy much of the time, but now she settled into her life in New Haven with new clothes, plenty to eat, a warm place to sleep, and most of all the ministrations of the lady she had come to think of as her new momma. Her world seemed safe now, and her reticence began to fall away. She explored New Haven, meeting new people, adults as well as other children, and was recognized as that little orphan girl by the many people who, by now, had heard her story. She had a way of speaking they seemed to find endearing: she never lost her Kentucky accent, which was unique in this mostly-German community.

***

Belle and Mary reached a rather uneasy detente, helped along by her eagerness to work around the rooming house with chores that she could manage. Mrs. Mueller read to her, helping her spell out words, simple ones at first and then longer ones. She decided Belle needed to get into school, and enrolled her in first grade.

A bit apprehensive at first, Belle quickly took to it and soon out-paced her classmates. She was eager to learn all the wonderful new things she found there, and borrowed books from the small school library to read at home. When Mrs. Mueller pronounced and explained words to her that were new, she never forgot them.

But after several months, she became aware of a change in the household. Mrs. Mueller’s energy seemed to flag, and there were times when she stayed in bed until seven or eight in the morning, previously unheard-of for her. She grew short of breath, and eventually was unable to manage the stairs to the second floor, or walk to the grocery without stopping several times. She sat in her chair in the evenings, massaging her swollen, painful ankles, and one night after Belle had had a disturbing dream and came quietly to her bedroom, she found Mrs. Mueller propped up in her bed on several pillows, sleeping fitfully as she strained to breathe.

Mary called the doctor after it became apparent that her mother was steadily declining, and after examining her, listening to her chest with his stethoscope and pressing the skin on her ankles and shins, leaving deep indentations, he pronounced his conclusion.Dropsy, he said quietly to Mary in the hallway outside her mother’s bedroom. Her heart is giving out. Neither of them noticed Belle standing in the door of the kitchen.

Can you do anything? asked Mary. There must be something…

There is some medicine I can give her, said the doctor. But I don’t think it will help much to prolong her life. It simply stimulates the heart briefly.

How long? asked Mary, through tears.

Not long, he replied. The little bit of heart she has left is simply working too hard. He put his stethoscope into his bag and hesitated. Has she had any chest pains or sudden weakness lately? I’m thinking she might have had a heart attack that wasn’t recognized.

That’s how my grandmother died, said Mary. But it took her suddenly, not like this. That seems almost better.

The doctor laid his hand on her arm. Keep her as comfortable as you can, he said. Try to limit the fluids that she drinks. I’ll come by later with the medicine.

At the kitchen door, Belle had gone numb, at first unable to comprehend what she heard. Memories came flooding back unbidden: the dark tent, the bubbling cough and finally, horrendously, the blood her momma spit up, choking and gasping for breath.

With an effort, she pushed these visions aside, but then, as she watched another momma slip away, struggling to breathe, she became angry. The doctor had to be wrong. He was old… maybe he didn’t really know what was wrong with her new momma. She simply couldn’t die now

CHAPTER 3

A plain wooden casket lay on trestles under the window in the front parlor. The upper half was open, revealing white satin lining cradling Mrs. Mueller, dressed in her best long-sleeved black dress with the white collar. Her hands were crossed over her chest.

Belle stood over the casket for several minutes, gazing at her. She remained unable to accept her death and this – person – in the casket, with sallow skin and sunken cheeks with too much rouge didn’t much resemble her new momma.

She had cried herself out when Mrs. Mueller gasped and drew her last breath, just yesterday morning. She and Mary and the doctor had been at the bedside, and he had reached down and gently closed her eyes.

You must see this as a blessing, he said to Mary. She was suffering, and would not get better.

Mary nodded. Her hands were over her mouth and tears streamed down her cheeks. Neither she nor the doctor had paid much attention to Belle who, in a daze, had backed out the door into the hallway. She had looked around Mrs. Mueller’s bedroom, at the doctor and then at Mary, and then up to the high ceiling, wondering if she could see her momma’s spirit as it went up to heaven, but she couldn’t.

She had approached the bedside then, and thought to say something. She’d gone to the First Baptist Church with Mrs. Mueller and listened to the prayers there, but her mind was numb and empty now. Finally, she had closed her eyes and thought, God, please take my new momma home with you.

Now, as she gazed into the casket, memories of her first momma’s death crept back again, watching as she struggled to breathe through the blood she was coughing up. Her auntie had thought she hadn’t seen, but she had.

Mary came up to stand beside her near the coffin. Belle, you must come away now. Other people wish to pay their respects. She put her hand on Belle’s shoulder, and the child pulled away abruptly without looking at her.

The furniture had been pushed back against the walls to make room for a steady stream of the many people who had known and respected Mrs. Mueller. Most of them had brought food, which covered the large table in the dining room, more than could be eaten in a week. But, by custom, this was always done.

It was nearing evening, and candles glowed in all the rooms. Yesterday, the doctor had notified the undertaker of Mrs. Mueller’s passing, and he and an assistant had come to pick up the body in their black horse-drawn hearse. Looking at it had given Belle a chill. If anything meant death, this ugly black coach with windows in the sides did, and she had apprehensively watched it out of sight down the street.

The undertaker had returned this morning and, as was the custom, the body was laid out in a casket in the parlor. An effort had been made to hide the pallor of Mrs. Mueller’s face and hands with powder and rouge, and Belle was repelled by the unnatural bloom of redness on her momma’s cheeks: simply one more thing that brought home the awful reality of what had happened.

Some of the visitors made awkward condolences to Belle – she was, after all, not Mrs. Mueller’s natural child – and when they offered an embrace, Belle’s body was stiff and unresponsive.

Later in the evening, after the visitors withdrew, Mary and several family members sat in the dimly-lit parlor, the coffin closed and seeming to loom large in the room. None of the family acknowledged Belle, who sat in a chair toward the back of the room. She couldn’t hear much of their murmured conversation, but occasionally one or another would glance in her direction.

Belle didn’t know who these people were, but they seemed close to Mary, and she assumed they were the family members she’d heard about, from nearby towns. In the dim candle-light, her eyes grew heavy and she quietly withdrew to her own tiny room in the rear of the house. There, she undressed and put on her long nightgown, warm cotton, with figures of animals dancing across the front, and after washing her face and hands, she lay down beneath the comforter.

She was unable to sleep, her mind moving from thought to thought, all of them sad or scary. What would become of her now? Mary tolerated her but obviously didn’t love her as her new momma had. She thought briefly about her aunt and uncle, now only dim unfocused memories, and wondered if they might, as promised, show up and take her with them. She reckoned not, not after all this time. Finally, her eyes drifted closed and she dreamed disturbing dreams, of being lost in the woods, alone, unable to find anyone, or find her way out.

The funeral was the following morning. The undertaker had appeared again with his horrid black hearse and drove slowly up to the Baptist Church, the family and neighbors walking or driving behind in their own