Ellen Ashdown Library Reading a Delight

On Monday, Sept. 22, about 30 people attended a luncheon at the St. George Island United Methodist Church to benefit the Franklin County Public Library.

Featured speaker was Ellen Ashdown, of St. George Island, who read from her newly published book, "Living by the Dead." The book is a memoir containing tableaus from throughout Ashdown's life, most centered on the years she and her husband, Gary, lived in a house adjacent to Roselawn Cemetery in Tallahassee.

"It's labeled a memoir and it definitely is," Ashdown told her audience. "I don't think I would have written it if I hadn't lived next door to a cemetery and while these are reflections on a cemetery, they are not all that gloomy."

Ashdown said the people, animals (some real and others only images) and even the stones and plots themselves inspired her book. Her readings were a delightful glimpse into the world of Roselawn.

""When we first looked at the house, the realtor made jokes about quiet neighbors," she said. "Gary and I made jokes about throwing each other over the back fence when the time came."

Ultimately the cemetery became Ashdown's haunt, no pun intended, and she spent hours exploring it.

"Cemeteries are set apart," she said. "Not forbidding, really, not always beautiful but separate."

The first excerpt Ashdown read was a portrait of Otis and Vera Wallace. Otis was a resident of Roselawn when Ashdown met him and Vera and his children were frequent visitors. Otis rested beneath a huge pink granite marker with Vera's name already inscribed next to his, and surmounting the entire monument was the image of a Trailways bus with "Heaven" emblazoned across the destination sign. Ashdown said she never approached the family but crossed paths with them for years. She would take visitors to view the monument and they invariably speculated that Otis was once a bus driver. A few wondered if he had been hit by a bus.

"Graveyards are worlds of the living too," said Ashdown, as she told the story of Mrs. Bryant, who spent hours grooming a plot each week. One day, Bryant engaged Ashdown in a rather one-sided conversation, explaining that she would one day join her late husband, who was buried in the plot she attended.

Her second husband had plans to be buried next to his late wife as well, in a plot located conveniently close by. The Bryants, it seems, had met at Roselawn. "He wouldn't stop calling me," Bryant told Ashdown. The couple was married six months later, their love begun with a meeting at the cemetery.

In her final reading, Ashdown recounted the experience of baptizing her sister with chocolate milk at a childhood tea party. "I don't remember anything that happened afterwards. I know there must have been screaming and crying and punishment but all I remember is that one wonderful moment," she told a rapt audience.

If Ashdown's reading reflects her book, it must be a splendid read. Ashdown herself was charming, witty and just plain funny. Even if you missed lunch at the church, I strongly suggest you pick up a copy of "Living by the Dead."