Greer, graves, and time machines

“This is the strangest cemetery I’ve ever seen,” I told my hubby as we climbed out of our 4Runner.
The Shumway Pioneer Cemetery was set among junipers with wild grasses plastered down by recent snows. Random graves dotted the stony hillside. Plastic flowers, small toys, and ceramic angels had faded in the sun.
Up the steep slope, we heard homeowners going about their Saturday chores. Ted set out across the grounds in one direction, I the other, with Kenidee, our little schnauzer, scampering between us.
We met again in front of the headstone for Riley Menlo Greer, born April 27, 1907, and died January 31, 1929.
I’ll admit to having an insatiable curiosity about people’s stories and yearned for a time machine to learn more about Riley’s passions, sorrows, and joys.
We assumed he must have been distantly related to Ted whose great-grandmother was Mally Greer Skouson, daughter of Americus Vespucius Greer.
The cemetery near Shumway, AZ, seemed an odd place to spend my birthday, but Ted and I usually give each other a trip to celebrate one more year on the planet.
This year I chose the beautiful White Mountains in northern Arizona where we planned to visit Greer, Arizona, named after Ted’s great-great grandfather.
The Shumway Cemetery was our last stop on my birthday loop before heading home.
We spent the first night in Taylor, AZ, and set out for Greer the next morning, driving through the beautiful Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest and arriving at our destination midmorning.
Greer is set at 8,400 feet amid the White Mountains. In the 2020 Census, it boasted a population of 58, so as we drove down Main Street, which ran parallel to the Little Colorado River, we were surprised by the number of cabins.
We found out later Greer is a tourist destination, not only because of the nearby Sunrise Ski Resort, but also because of the beautiful forests, numerous lakes, and diverse wildlife, including the Mexican grey wolf.
The little town was originally called Lee Valley after its founder, Willard Lee, but once the townsfolk built a post office, the postmaster asked them to shorten the name, so they honored A.V. Greer who helped plan the town.
A small library bore his name, so we started our sleuthing there. However, the tiny Asian librarian lived in Eagar, 20 minutes away.
She didn’t know anything about the town’s background, but she walked us over to a few shelves filled with Arizona history, none of which focused on Greer or even Eagar.
Fortunately, when we later searched the internet, we found a site, billiongraves.com, that had preserved a number of manuscripts documenting A.V. Greer’s life.
Unfortunately, his most detailed journal was missing 150 pages, spanning 40 years of his life. Nevertheless, I gratefully entered the time machine and traveled back to Alabama, 1832.
Americus Vespucius Greer was born 15 minutes after his twin, Christopher Columbus, with Christopher weighing in at 9.5 pounds and A.V. at 9.
A.V. said they were identical “even to our teeth and nails,” and their mom “kept a ribbon tied around my brother’s arm” to tell them apart.
When the twins turned five, the family moved to Texas where their dad killed 25 to 30 bears the first year. The family prized the bears for their meat and fat, but with eight children and two adults, A.V. said, “We had a hard time in Texas for clothing and many luxuries. Even cornbread was scarce.”
The family eventually carved out several farms and a better living for themselves, but 17 years later, just a month before their 22nd birthday, Christopher headed out on a hunting trip. The weather turned cold unexpectedly, and Christopher contracted pneumonia.
He died six days later. A.V. wrote, “His sudden and untimely death was one of the trying ordeals in my life.”
It wouldn’t be the last ordeal he faced, but those hardships, including an arduous trek to Utah during which he lost his father and little brother, returning to Texas with his grief-stricken mother, and fighting in the Civil War, helped to polish his character.
Years later, in the spring of 1878, A.V., his wife Polly, and their little family moved to Round Valley, AZ, where he “laid out a town and sold lots to the people who came into the valley from other places.”
Today only a chimney, historical marker, and cemetery show where Amity once existed, but Greer, which he also laid out, survived and thrived.
When A.V.’s wife died in 1882, she left him with six children to raise, but with the help of his daughters, he took on the task.
His daughter, Wilmirth, wrote, “Father was devoted to his family, doing everything he could to be mother and father.”
When he died 14 years later, one of his admirers wrote, “With a good memory, broad reading, a knowledge of prominent people and a very varied experience and an inimitable drawl, he was the county’s best story tell [sic].
“Were I an artist, I could draw his picture yet, with hair that stood upon the top of his head, his white beard, deep set eyes that showed intellect and manners....”
The journals preserved on the internet provide us with a time machine into Americus Vespucius Greer’s life, but what about Riley Menlo Greer whose grave we stood before in the Shumway Pioneer Cemetery?
Although I didn’t find any journals, I did discover a brief life sketch on familysearch.org.
Kahlil Gibran once said, “A word I want to see written on my grave: I am alive like you....”
With a short sketch, Riley Menlo Greer came alive for me.