01/13/2026
As many of you know we built two homes on Arbor Drive in Waxhaw. We had some pushback from some buyers on the cemetery. I had some people question why we purchased there, and this is partly why.
It is part of the history of Waxhaw. This story is partly what makes Waxhaw so great. The lovely families that live here. And this is just one of their stories!
Cemeteries are often seen as quiet places filled with cold stone and carved names — but they are so much more than that. Every gravestone marks a life once lived, a family once whole, a story worth remembering.
When I was told this family story a few weeks ago, it stayed with me. I’ve seen the Rodman plot many times before, but after hearing their story, I knew I had to go back. This afternoon, I finally went to visit the grave again — and it felt different standing there, knowing what those stones had witnessed.
Local history isn’t just dates and names to me. It’s people. It’s mothers and fathers, children and loss. It’s love that didn’t end when life did.
The Rodman family was one of the founding families of our town. Their name is etched into our land and our beginnings. But here, among these stones, their story becomes deeply human — and heartbreakingly familiar.
When Allie Rodman Walkup lost her 14-year-old son to scarlet fever, her world shattered. Fourteen years — barely a lifetime. She could not bear the thought of him being placed in the ground, out of sight and out of reach. So she kept him close. An above-ground brick enclosure was built, brick by brick, not just as a grave, but as a mother’s refusal to let go.
That structure stood for years as a visible expression of grief — of love, denial, hope, and heartbreak intertwined. The kind of grief that doesn’t end when the service is over. The kind that follows you home and sits with you in the quiet moments.
It wasn’t until Allie herself passed away that her son was finally laid to rest in the ground, reunited with her and the Rodman family in their plot. Even more than 100 years later, the stones still tell that story.
This is why cemeteries matter. These people are not distant or different from us. They laughed, worked, raised families, and loved deeply. They mourned, they endured, and they made impossible choices in moments of unbearable pain. Beneath every headstone is not just a death — but a life once fully lived, and a story still waiting to be told.
