Mountain View Methodist Church - Mountain View, Virginia 

As I drove up Guinea Mountain Road on a quiet Sunday morning in early April, I was not sure what I was going to find. The last time I remember coming here was for my grandfather's funeral. He died in 1957.

I was nearly 10 years old when my grandfather died and had no experience with funerals. When we arrived at my grandparent's house there was a wreath on the door, and cars were parked up and down the street. Inside, my grandfather's coffin sat in the small living room, surrounded by flowers. The curtains were drawn and it was dark and hot and crowded. I was glad that I was staying overnight with my aunt and uncle who lived nearby.

It was over 50 years ago when I rode with my family up Guinea Mountain Road to bury my grandfather at Mountain View. But on this April day I was alone, and my memories of that time were faint. At last I reached the Mountain View Methodist Church and stopped. The parking lot was empty; services are held only one Sunday a month. As I walked around the church taking photographs, a car pulled up at the house next to the church. I walked over and asked about the location of the cemetery. I remembered the cemetery being adjacent to the church but there was no cemetery within sight of the church. The woman told me that the cemetery was about a half mile down the road. She asked if I was interested in a particular family.

My grandfather is on the far left

" I am a Fuller," I replied.

"There was an Edd Fuller who preached at this church when I was a little girl," she said.

"That was my grandfather," I said.

She said that back then, several different denominations used the church building for services, and that she remembered my grandfather well. I had pictures at home that were taken at the church in the early 1950's and I wondered if she was in any of them. Standing in front of the church where my grandfather once preached and talking to someone who had known him made me feel close to him.

I drove on up to the cemetery, which is on a high ridge near the top of Guinea Mountain, and visited the Fuller graves. My grandfather's grave is no longer there; he was moved to Princeton, West Virginia at my grandmother's wishes in the 1960s. The cemetery was just as I remembered it. For a moment, the years fell away, and I felt the first bitter loss of a loved family member. There were no flowers, but the grass was just starting to turn green. I leaned against the chain link fence and looked across the valley at the unchanging mountains. Then it was time to go home.

Thanks to my cousin Timmy Hurst for the pictures which are from a family album owned by his mother, my dad's little sister. She attended services at Mountain View with her father, and sang in the choir.