Haywood County residents have always been very protective — and particular — about Waynesville’s historic Green Hill Cemetery, but at least one member of the Waynesville Cemetery Committee is looking to head off disaster before it becomes another public relations nightmare.

Maintaining a dignified and beautiful resting place for departed loved ones is no easy task. It is important to have and enforce rules to preserve the historic value of Green Hill Cemetery and others. The customary code of polite behavior deserves repeating, especially considering the recent events at Green Hill Cemetery. In that spirit, here are the top five rules of cemetery etiquette. 

A few months after a devastating Pigeon River flood in 2021, some friends of the Canton Area Historical Museum gathered at the flood-ravaged building to study a couple of photographs that had been donated to the museum. One of these was obviously an early panoramic view of Haywood County’s Sunburst logging village that once thrived where the waters of Lake Logan are impounded. However, the other photo required a bit more thought and analysis to finally conclude whence it was taken.   

North Shore Cemetery Association announced the cancellation of all North Shore Cemetery Decorations through June 15. At present, all group activities within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park are suspended through June 15 and this may change in the future given the complexity and unknown factors concerning the Covid-19 pandemic.

Proposed changes to and clarifications of cemetery ordinances prompted by public outcry in Waynesville will soon undergo a period of public comment before possible adoption by the town’s Board of Aldermen. 

It’s quiet and peaceful on the hillside of Bryson City Cemetery. Overlooking the hustle and bustle of downtown, all you can hear are birds chirping and the freshly cut grass crunching underneath your feet, but if those old stones could talk they’d have some stories to tell. 

Months after a proscribed cleanup in Waynesville’s Green Hill Cemetery outraged residents who felt they hadn’t been given adequate notice, the town has followed through on its pledge to establish a committee designed to foster more collaborative care of both Green Hill and Dix Hill cemeteries. 

One hundred years ago, the parking area and campground just past the fields in Cataloochee Valley where elk often hang out was better known as Nellie, a remote community in what is now the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. 

As anybody who’s ever driven the steep and narrow access road from Jonathan Creek can imagine, it was hard to get in and hard to get out in the days when horsepower came mainly from actual horses. People didn’t have much, partly because of how difficult it was to transport outside goods up and over the ridge. 

Long-established rules and regulations created by the Town of Waynesville that proscribed periodic cleanup of the town’s historic Green Hill Cemetery upset family members of the deceased, who were taken aback — and, they say, by surprise — when the cleanup resulted in dozens of shrubs, statues, vases and floral arrangements being cleared from plots. 

It’s a crisp fall day in Swain County. As the sun finally peaks over the trees around lunch time, the cars fill up the parking lot at the Deep Creek Campground and visitors are ready for a day of hiking and exploring the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.