EDGEFIELD --
The grave site was cloaked beneath a green Astroturf cover Monday,
on a little knoll surrounded by wrought iron and blooming shrubs.
The grave was dug by hand, with nothing but strong backs and sweat.
The grass around the hole seemed to sparkle.
In Willowbrook Cemetery in little Edgefield, the world will watch
Strom Thurmond be buried today.
Eugene Martin, 43, father of two and a graduate of Strom Thurmond
High School in Edgefield, cut the grass around the grave.
"Lived here all my life," Martin said.
Martin has a contract to mow the cemetery, but there is no dollar
amount able to gauge his heart. He knows Thurmond once embraced
segregation but changed his tune.
"Everybody knows all about it here," Martin said. "He changed. It
took some kind of powerful courage."
Martin had slashed the stray grass blades earlier with a lawn
tool. He used his hands after that.
He wiped the headstone of Thurmond's parents. He cleaned the
leaves and clippings from the gravestones of Thurmond's sister and
brother that lay in the same family plot surrounded by masonry
stones with "Thurmond" etched on them and the little fence with
"Thurmond" written in iron.
"Kind of like him, iron," Martin said.
Martin mowed with a handmower with a bag attached. But that
wasn't good enough. He picked up the grass shards first with a
blower, then he gathered up by hand the tiny clippings machines
couldn't gather.
Eugene Martin, a black man from Edgefield, South Carolina. Strom
Thurmond's Edgefield -- Eugene Martin's too.
"It is an honor, maybe the biggest honor of my life, to be able
to do this," Martin said. "This right here might be the biggest day
ever in Edgefield. I'm proud to do my part."
Edgefield put its makeup on Monday. Kids and young and old men
and highway crews cut the grass in and out of town.
"We're just trying to get ready," said grass cutter Willie
Brannon. "I expect the whole country will be watching us. We best
look good."
Six S.C. Department of Transportation crews mowed the highway
edges on the 16 miles of S.C. 19 between U.S. 20 and the Strom
Thurmond statue in the shadow of the Edgefield County
Courthouse.
Edith Calloway knew the world was watching Monday at the
Statehouse in Columbia, too. A 46-year-old black single mother with
three children who has four years on the job, Calloway is supposed
to be to work by 7 a.m. She came early Monday.
Calloway vacuumed the carpet around Thurmond's casket. She
polished the brass on the rails and burnished the floors to a shine
where the shoes of thousands walked by.
"I wanted everything to be just right," Calloway said. "Senator
Thurmond deserves that respect. It seems like he changed for the
better. I liked him -- I sure did."
Today in Edgefield, County Coroner W. Thurmond Burnett of
Edgefield Mercantile Funeral Home won't bury his old buddy Thurmond,
but he offered the folks from Shellhouse Funeral Home in Aiken any
help they might need.
"I buried his momma in 1958," Burnett said. "I buried the whole
rest of his family."
Burnett's first two names are William Thurmond because Strom's
brother, Dr. William Thurmond, delivered him.
"Just about every visitation we had, Strom would call us here and
ask to speak to the family," Burnett said. "Then somebody from the
family would come out and tell everybody 'Guess who just called
here. Senator Strom Thurmond himself.'"
Before the funeral today, in the cool Edgefield morning, Eugene
Martin will go back to Willowbrook Cemetery. He has a contract that
calls for him to cut the grass every two weeks. Since Thurmond's
death Thursday, Martin has cut the grass three times.
Martin will cut the grass again, even though he just cut it
Monday. He will bag the tiny clippings. He'll pick up the stray
leaves by hand.
"Strom Thurmond is a legend," Martin said. "He did a lot to help
folks in South Carolina. White folks and black folks. He was a big
enough man to change. For his funeral, it's gotta be perfect. I
intend it to be so."
Contact Andrew Dys at 329-4065 or mailto:adys@heraldonline.com
