Hello and welcome to The Rob Burgess Show. I am, of course, your host, Rob Burgess.
On this our 280th episode, our returning guest is… me!
I have done nearly two dozen previous solo episodes of this podcast. For the complete list, check the show notes.
I am a 35-time award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in print, radio, online and television. I am currently a Reporter for Financial Planning Magazine. Most recently, I was Technology Reporter for Wealth Management Magazine; Editor of the Wabash Plain Dealer; News Editor of NUVO; Managing Editor of the Indiana Lawyer; and City Editor, Opinion Page Editor and Editorial Board Member of the Kokomo Tribune. I was also a reporter at WFHB, the Times-Mail, The Reporter-Times, Ukiah Daily Journal and Ukiah Valley Television.
I’m also the proprietor of the podcast, The Rob Burgess Show.
This is going to be a very special episode.
It's about a field trip I took in fifth grade.
You can watch it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJJ4i-oy4J8
Here's a House of Burgess column I wrote when I was News Editor of NUVO published Feb. 23, 2019 titled, “Past as Prologue”: https://web.archive.org/web/20190224000411/https://www.nuvo.net/voices/burgess-past-as-prologue/article_0a36f1f2-36c3-11e9-9828-a75a4166eb4c.html
Here's the column by Justin Watterson published Feb. 24, 2018 on his Wordpress blog, The Wattersonian, titled, “The Remains of Oliver Burnett and Lessons from the Woods”: https://wattersonian.wordpress.com/2018/02/24/the-remains-of-oliver-burnett-and-lessons-from-the-woods/
A few weeks ago, I found the notebook from the field trip in my garage.
Here's what I wrote Oct. 26, 1993:
“Our Centary [Cemetary] Field Trip
“We left at 9:24 [a.m.] to private little spot with 3 gravesites. To get here go down Highway 60 to the third road on the left. Go down till you see an open field on the left is a hill climb up it until you have almost reaches the top. Go into the woods and when you see 3 stones. Mr. Watterson told us about the importantce [importance] of written history.
“Then we put holes in the ground. Then we posts in the ground. Then Mr. Watterson talked about folklore. Then we put some hooks in the posts. After that we put a long, long chain that we put around the posts. Then we asked questions. We went back down the hill. Then we went back to the bus. We retraced our steps there. As we went home, Mr. Watterson told us about a guy who killed his wife and 2 brothers a hair pin. I did not believe it. We got back to school at 10:40 a.m. This field trip was very, very fun and interesting.”
I asked Justin if he knew any more about that last bit. He said:
“I should have known the story you were referring to. That grave is an Isom woman and I think she was related to the perpetrator in question. When Van Sanders used to tell those stories to Dad when he was alive (his family was an original plot owner there in that area so he knew the history) he always referred to the hill as "Ant'ony Hill." I found census records for I believe an Anthony Isom. The story was that his wife fell disabled (invalid) and he got tired of taking care of her so he took and axe and chopped her up. Finding records of that is pretty much impossible but that's what you're referring to I think.
“There were a bunch of mixed-race folks who settled right there in that area and I always kind of guessed that it was because the old Indian boundary line was right there going through that area way back in the day. Isom was a very common name among them and they mostly came from Virginia where other such settlements existed. There were notable other settlements of free people of color around the state back in the 19th century.
“It's an interesting wormhole to go down. What defined "black" on the census was kind of crazy. I found some people on the 1850 census who were market as black but then ten years later they were white.”
Now, let's travel 32 years in the past.
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