"Poppy, [Perry Cyphers] died in the Winter [following his third experience with pneumonia]. When they went to bury him, he was going to be buried in the family graveyard up on top of the mountain, but the ground was frozen solid and they couldn't dig the grave deep enough to put the casket. So they decided that the only thing that they could do was bury him as close to the graveyard as they could get and where the ground wasn't too hard to dig, which was on the side of the mountain."

"Today, you can't even tell there's a grave where Poppy is buried. It's all grown over."

Told by: Frank Cyphers

(This short story was told to and transcribed by Benita Cyphers; May 1999; Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2007).


Note:

• Perry died in Abt. 1936. See the Cyphers surname page.
• In 1995, my dad and sisters visited Perry Cyphers' unmarked grave and took the photo above. Apparently, the gravesite isn't too far from railroad tracks ... my sister picked up a couple of old, rusty railroad spikes at the site. She kept one and gave one to me as a memorial of Grandpa Perry's burial ground.
• The location of the unmarked grave is: [this information will be provided at a later date when I have more specific information] in English, WV; McDowell County