...a white church down a country road that marks home...

Providence Memorial Cemetery is connected to Providence United Methodist Church in Quinton, VA. It’s right down the street from my parents’ home and I visited it again last Saturday.

I couldn’t find much history about the church or the graveyard but that they have been around for quite some time. Records from 1785 show that Methodist leaders were preaching at a “Chickahominy Church” and later from a “Log Chapel,” which sat across the street from the current church building. There were numerous churches that sat here but the current sanctuary wasn’t built until 1938.  

Providence United Methodist was originally part of the Williamsburg Circuit that included congregations served by a traveling preacher. This all changed in 1985. I believe I even went to school with that first times-are-a-changing reverend but those are stories for another day.

 

Aside from seeing this church almost daily in route to school, I mostly remember getting caught making out with a date with whom I’m still friends so I’ll just leave it at that. Keep in mind that those were the days that we would sometimes go sit behind the airport and lean back on our cars to watch the airplanes fly by. Of course now I know that we were in the emergency crash zone but y’all I grew up in the country where my options were somewhat limited to cow-tipping (which I never did) and mud-bogging (which was oddly fun). Seems my Saturday graveyard stroll was filled with many walks down cemetery memory lane.

I walked around the graveyard and tried to locate some of the oldest graves which apparently were flat stones and not as elaborate as I had hoped. Sorry stones! I didn't intend to sound like a meany when I wrote that :-/ There were a few from the mid to late 1800s but most of the stones that I saw were relatively modern. 

Albeit small, it's a beautiful little place at the intersection of a busy country road.