By Kathryn Reisdorfer
(The Yavapai Cemetery Association will be holding its 7th annual Memorial Day Observance at the Citizens Cemetery, 815 E. Sheldon, at 9:00 AM tomorrow. Visitors are always welcome to wander throughout the cemetery and find stories of their own)
The irises are done blooming now, and even the spring roses, the small pink and yellow ones that seem to have sprung out of every rock in the city, are fading. I was ready for more flowers when I saw something else entirely.
There, right in front of me was Charley Genung! THE Charley Genung, I thought. But I wasn't sure. I'm not a native here, and I could just hear some old timer saying that Charley Genung had an uncle named Charles B. Genung, and then I'd feel so foolish, but I checked it out. Charley Genung, THE Charley Genung, did die in 1916. It was him. I found him recently lying around with my other dead friends who rest among the irises in Citizens' Cemetery on Sheldon.
I tell people that I have many dead friends-not friends who are dead (well, there are those, too), but dead friends. We didn't know each other before, and I suppose that they don't bother much about me now. My guess is that these people, who've had plenty of time to relax into the earth, don't give a hoot about this stranger, but I care about them. And, yes, I do know them a bit-the ones with Spanish surnames, the ones with the epitaphs written in French, the Germans, the long-time US dwellers.
I know the short and long-lived folks; I know the couples who lived for 80 years and died two months apart; I know men whose lives were terminated when they were in their thirties and children who had even less time than those poor fellows. There are three brothers and one sister with a single headstone. At first I noticed only one side of the stone, the side that listed one boy who died at nine months and the other who died 11 years later. He was a little over six and a half. Then I discovered that there is writing on both sides of the stone.
On the other side of this small monument are two more names of children, a sixteen year old and a nine year old who died within a week of the second child. I never hurry past them. The infant died in1883, and the other three died in July of 1894, but they share a single headstone that their parents probably saved for years to buy. Because I have children myself, I cannot help but think of their mother, and I am transported back to a time when my own family had a repeat-tragedy. When I was twelve, my brother and his wife lost a lovely, healthy 16-month old girl to a doctor's error. And 30 years later, to the month, they lost their bright, lively 28 year-old, just as suddenly.
I am standing by the siblings' graves wondering how their mother felt at those burials . I remember my sister-in-law, almost whirling in circles by the grave of her second-dead, telling the women with her that she prayed that we would never have to feel such pain. She was wearing a red coat in the cold Nebraska rain, and I can still see that red. I suppose she should have been wearing black, but who in the world is ready for that ugly midnight death-call, prepared with the clothes that once were deemed not just proper but absolutely necessary for death? She probably grabbed what was nearest so she could ride that mournful thousand mile journey to the grave. And what was nearest was red.
That mother in 1883, did not wear red, we can be sure. She wore black, and then the same black-over and over-in 1894, mainly because she didn't own anything red. But she was probably a lot like my sister-in-law in other ways. She probably staggered around the empty hole, grasping for hands, praying for others as she nearly suffocated in her own grief. Was it easier for her to accept her fate because so many other children died in those days? I doubt it. I wonder how she even survived that week in 1894. Did she ever recover her spirits? Her name was Henriette. Does my thinking of her lessen her burden? I would like to stay awhile with her. But I must move on. I have work to do. And there are so many flowers to see. That's when I find Charley Genung for the first time. A big smile comes over my face. I forget the children and their broken mother. I am captivated by Charley.
Is this THE Charley Genung, whose name I first saw on a small poster in a window on Whiskey Row around rodeo time, that first summer in Prescott? Genung, I thought when I first saw it. Genung-the name reminded me of the German word for enough. But when I looked at his picture, him in his cowboy hat, I thought of Charley Goodnight-the Goodnight Trail, you know, cows and fresh air and life in the open. Aha, I thought, so Prescott has its cowboy heroes too. And, of course it does. Charley Genung was born in 1838. The headstone tells me that. He was one of the old pioneers in Yavapai County. Sharlot Hall liked to correspond with him, and they even traveled around together. He knew everything, I guess.
And now that I know a little more about Charley, I am so pleased to see him lying so close to Henriette's children, though I don't know why. But there they all are-safe, compact, and cared for, surrounded by all those flowers. The irises aren't blooming in the cemetery any more, but they were a few weeks ago. And the roses that came on so fast are fading even faster. Flowers here in the cemetery, like all over town, come and go-they obey the commands of the seasons and the rain. In doing this, they help me mark time, and they visit the dead regularly, just like I do.
Kathryn Reisdorfer has recently completed the second volume of an inventory of Yavapai County historical resources. Both are available throughout the County.
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number: (c101pe). Reuse only by permission.
The Citizens Cemetery on East Sheldon is an ideal place to explore Prescott's past and get to know some new "friends" and discover stories. Each year the Yavapai Cemetery Association holds a Memorial Day service at Citizens. All are welcome to attend this Monday.