A 200-year-old tradition of grave sweeping will be honored in Pickett County Saturday in an effort to preserve a piece of Appalachian history.
April Haden is organizer of the Saturday broom-making event. She said the Winningham Cemetery is the only known site in Middle Tennessee that maintains the practice of sweeping the grounds with handmade corn brooms instead of mowing grass. Haden said the cemetery remains entirely barren of grass because families gather the first weekend in June to sweep the graves as a show of honor and respect for their ancestors.
“It’s a show of honor and love and respect to their relatives in that cemetery,” Hayden said. “And so we kind of partnered with them and we’re doing an event this Saturday where people can come out and learn about sweeping of the graves, the history.”
Haden said the local women currently maintaining the cemetery are in their 70s and are concerned the tradition will vanish without community involvement. Haden said the Winningham Cemetery is a unique landmark located up a country road on a mountain where the ground is kept completely clear.
“I’ve lived here 43 years and I only become aware of the cemetery this year,” Haden said. “And so I feel like that there’s just not enough people that know about it and know about how unique it is.”
Haden said participants will learn how to source broom corn so they can continue the craft at home and pass the skill to future generations. Hayden said the goal of the workshop is to bridge the gap between modern residents and the resourceful history of their Appalachian ancestors.
“It’s important to remember where we came from, even though we’re, you know, so far advanced now,” Hayden said. “It’s important to remember the people out of respect and love and honor what they did to get us to where we are today and kind of keep that tradition going.”
Haden said the event begins at 10am at the Byrdstown Ag building and features a broom-making workshop led by fourth-generation Appalachian artist Robert Beatty. Haden said the $15 registration fee also covers a traditional country lunch and an afternoon session on crafting crepe flowers, which were historically used for grave decoration when silk flowers were unavailable.
“We’re trying to get the community more involved in knowing about the sweeping of the graves and keep it going because there’s few and few relatives that are left that have family in that cemetery,” Haden said. “And so they’re afraid that, you know, if we don’t get the word out and other people join in to help preserve this Appalachian tradition, they’re afraid that it’ll eventually be lost once their generation’s gone.”
