Abstract
Cades Cove, as is any community, is a socially constructed reality on the cultural landscape, but it has been socially constructed twice, once by the historical residents who delineated the community over time, and once by the National Park Service that razed some structures while preserving others to present and commemorate a selective version of the cove as a nineteenth-century mountain community. More people visit the social reconstruction than would have visited the original social construction of Cades Cove as community. In that context of social construction and reconstruction, perhaps the cemeteries remain as the most authentic representation of and a window into the community as it was constructed and intended by those residents of 100 years ago and more. Regardless of the version of Cades Cove encountered and perceived, its cemeteries remain a constant.
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Notes
- 1.
Early settlers made Cades Cove a special place, an endearing place. Had they not come and cleared the valley floor of its forests, those promontories would not be seen and would not be named. That is part of the debt of gratitude to those early settlers owed, a debt partially repaid with each visit of wonder and appreciation.
- 2.
The establishment of Mammoth Cave National Park, July 1, 1941, also involved eminent domain; most cemeteries still allow descendants of the residents to be interred, churches and communities were not preserved.
References
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Wolfe, Thomas. 1929. Look Homeward Angel: A Story of the Buried Life. New York: Charles Scribner and Sons.
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Foster, G.S., Lovekamp, W.E. (2019). A Conclusion to the Story of Cades Cove’s Cemeteries. In: Cemeteries and the Life of a Smoky Mountain Community. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23295-5_8
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