Rachel Fowler
Little Rachel Fowler lies all by herself in an isolated grave in the woods, while a host of her kin rest in the park-like environs of Fowler Cemetery across the highway, close enough you can see it from Rachel's graveside. The larger Fowler Cemetery is a pleasant wooded cemetery that is well maintained. Rachel's grave gets weed wacked once a year by National Park Service personnel. Hardly anyone ever stops by to pay their respects to Rachel (hardly anyone knows where she is), while her kin presumably receive regular visitation across the road.
So how does it happen that a dead two year old ends up buried all alone and separated from her family this way?
When we published our account of the Rachel Fowler gravesite, we had come up empty-handed in our efforts to learn her story. A name and dates birth and death are not much of a legacy for a life, however brief it was. Thankfully, someone had the foresight to put a marker on her grave to preserve her name. Rachel's empty story is an example of why it is so important to document oral history while there is still an oral history to document. We are within a few short years of the moment when there is no one remaining with first-hand memories of pre-Park days. Before long we will lose even those who can say, "My granddaddy told me."
Here is another account of how GoSmokies readers participate in the Remembrance Project by contributing research and background that they have discovered, helping flesh out stories that might otherwise remain unanswered questions. Smoky Mountain historian, Mike Maples, posted our Rachel Fowler mystery on his Facebook page, and a descendant named Bob Schults replied, answering the mystery of the isolated grave.
Per Mr. Schults, "my grandfather had a spring at the foot of the hill. It was feared that creating a cemetery that close to the spring might possibly contaminate it. They then started the cemetery on the hill on the other side of the highway."
So little Rachel, dying in 1875, was not slighted after all or purposely separated from the rest of her family.