Seymour Whitney

By Velma M. Rose Smith

A child is crying. She is standing by her mother, beside an open grave. She is about six years old and this is her first experience with death.

There is a large brick house on the hill overlooking the village. It was built by Captain Whitney, a captain in the Civil War, who settled here. He had an only son, named Seymour, who has made his home in the brick house for years. As a boy he found Indian arrowheads on the farm, and became interested in Indian folklore. When the Ford cars came out, he bought one, and made a trip through the west, picking up many Indian relics. Many interesting things happened on his trip and he enjoyed telling the stories. When we moved here in 1934, he led the homecoming parade, leading a horse hitched to a carry-all, loaded with Whitneyville Indians. He had an Indian blanket around his shoulders and a feather in his headband.

He would stop in, sit in my kitchen, and tell me stories of the village, and I was too busy to listen. He got older, crippled with arthritis, but he would walk down to the store porch to visit, but folks were too busy to stop. He would sit down on the porch with my two little girls, one each side of him and crack hickory nuts for them. He always carried a pocket full of them.

I got a call, Seymour had died. I told the girls, and Jeanette began to cry, and asked to stay home from school for the funeral. I let her go, for she truly mourned him. This gray-haired wizened old man was her friend and she was the only one who wept.