Grave tending lets memories blossom forth

Under Friday’s cloudless sky, the three knelt in front of a row of simple gravestones at Mount Hope Cemetery in Bangor and lovingly cultivated a lifetime of memories.

And with every flower they planted, a family story blossomed.

“I just feel as if I’m giving back what was given to me,” said Joan Luce, who had come from Waldoboro during this time of remembrance to visit the graves of her parents, Burritt Graffam and Ruby Edmunds. Beside them was a headstone inscribed with the name Robert D. Edmunds, Joan’s half brother, who drowned in a boating accident on Swan Lake in 1934, at the age of 16.

With Joan was her 50-year-old son, Burritt “Burt” Luce, and his girlfriend, Debra Crossman.

“Growing up, I used to go to the graveyards around Memorial Day with my mother and father and my grandmother,” Joan said. “We’d go to the cemeteries in East Corinth, Stillwater and Newburgh. It was a time dedicated to all those people – not just family, but friends, too – who meant something to us.”

As the nation remembers its war dead, Joan chose to spend this afternoon remembering her father, who was born in 1895 and died in 1969. Although he served in World War I, on the front lines of France, he would never have regarded himself as a war hero.

“Oh, no, he hated the war,” said Joan, who recently found four of the postcards her father had sent from France to his family in Maine. “He was opposed to all of the killing. It just wasn’t in his nature to kill.”

Sitting on the edge of a large headstone, Joan remembered her mother as the “businesswoman” of the family and her father as a quiet, gentle man who was happiest when he was working on his 100-acre farm in Newburgh. He raised dairy and beef cattle, Belgian horses, chickens and vegetables, and was always willing to share everything he had with neighbors.

“After the war, he came home and ran a small store on Ohio Street in Bangor,” Joan said, as her son loosened the ground with a trowel and planted a few geraniums in front of his grandfather’s stone. “But he used to extend credit to so many people – anyone who was hungry and had no money – that eventually he couldn’t afford to keep the store going anymore. Yes, he was a very, very generous man that way.”

Burt Luce still refers to his grandfather as “Buppa,” the name he called him as a child. Burt, who now lives in Milo and tends his own vast garden, spent most of his childhood summers on his grandparents’ farm. Hardly a day passes that he doesn’t think of the man whose name he carries.

“He was the main influence in my life,” Burt said. “He loved the land, and he loved animals, and he had a generous spirit. Long before my time, my grandfather used to have the only farm truck in Newburgh. And every year he’d go around and pick up the local kids and bring them to the circus when it came to town. In fact, for the last two or three weeks, as I’ve been planting my garden, all I can think about is him and his garden and how he used to feed half the town from it.”

On Mother’s Day 1969, Burritt Graffam collapsed and died while tilling his garden. His wife, Ruby, died in 1982. In his grandfather’s honor, Burt completed the grave tending by planting a few kernels of corn and a potato – a red Pontiac, Buppa’s favorite variety – among the flowers at the grave.

“These memories mean a lot,” Joan said, as the small group gathered up the gardening supplies and prepared to visit the family cemeteries in Newburgh and Stillwater. “You can’t ever forget.”

Tom Weber’s column appears Wednesday and Saturday.