On Grief in Fieldwork

Fiona Boyd

University of Chicago

Figure 1. My grandmother holding the hands of my brother and I with a tight grip. Photo by Kit Harrison.

During fieldwork, I visited with others’ grief, which helped me weather a long goodbye with my grandmother. Connie Fox, better known as Mormor to my family, lived a resolute and full life—she continued painting after her eyesight gave way, she cracked jokes with gesture, she refused many things, and called me up often. She passed at 98, the year I traveled around the north- and southeastern U.S. in my red Toyota Corolla for dissertation fieldwork. Unlike others I have lost, Mormor held on to the sun rays, shadows, low murmurs, and gently held hands of the living world far longer than expected. I said goodbye to her in November 2022, in East Hampton, NY, with my brother, because we knew it would be the last time we saw her. She lived until June 19, so for seven months the echoes of my goodbyes took painfully twisting, slow turns.

I carried this weight through my fieldwork year, but it did not always present as a challenge. Sometimes, memories of and revelations about my grandmother buoyed my encounters in the field, helping me understand others’ grief, and their ways of remembering, tuning me into the bittersweet elements of family, forgetting, and commemorating.

In Fall 2022, I spent two months in Mount Airy, North Carolina, a small town near the Virginia border that was made famous by the 1960’s sitcom The Andy Griffith Show. Griffith grew up in Mount Airy, and the show is loosely based on small town life in the region. The tourism industry of the town has fully embraced its fictionalization as “Mayberry,” yet an underlying cultural resonance of pastness also undergirds other sectors of the community’s social life.

Figure 2. Ralph and Earlene Epperson’s joint gravestone in Mount Airy, North Carolina. Photo by the author.

While in Mount Airy, I spent most of my time at the local old-time, bluegrass, and gospel radio station WPAQ, getting to know those on the air as well as the station’s listeners. Founded in 1948 by Ralph Epperson, WPAQ was the first station to broadcast in the area, serving as a social and musical nexus ever since. At the end of my fieldwork in Mount Airy, I tracked down Epperson’s grave at the Oakdale Cemetery just outside of town. I wove my way in and out of each section, trying to find the grave using a rough map from the cemetery’s website. I finally spotted Epperson’s grave, where he is buried alongside his wife, Earlene, positioned right alongside N. Main Street, the road that leads through downtown.

Figure 3. Fox family gravestone in Fowler, Colorado. Photo by the author.

I was startled by the stone’s placement, positioned so close to the road. I had, in fact, been passing it for weeks unknowingly as I mulled over my interviews and experiences in the field, often tuning into WPAQ as I zoomed past. Standing at the gravestone, just four days after saying goodbye to Mormor, I chuckled to myself realizing that in this position, Ralph could still track who listened to his station by the sounds wafting from car windows as they passed. He is still a part of his family and the town’s social life, not just in memory fragments, but also in the sounds and spaces of the area. Perhaps that is part of why people like small places, where we can stay close to familial and sensory meaning. Perhaps that is also why I dread small places.

The second gravestone I visited after saying goodbye to Mormor was in her hometown of Fowler, Colorado. I flew into Denver a day early for the 2023 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, rented a car, and drove two and a half hours to visit my relatives there for the first time. On a tour of the small, agricultural town, we visited the cemetery where a number of Foxes are buried. My heart dropped at the unclaimed spot on the family stone in red—my body again grieving Mormor’s passing in advance. Yet, I was so grateful she would be visited often, cared for, and part of our family’s social life for years to come.

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Looking back, my fieldwork in Mount Airy certainly helped me through my initial stages of grief. WPAQ’s acceptance and integration of death and sadness into their radio sounds created a kind of warmth and comfort around grieving that I had not fully experienced before. Twice a day, the announcers read community members’ obituaries live on the air. Songs, segments, and programs are frequently dedicated to loved ones, bringing those who have passed into the social life of the living. Since fieldwork, my mind sometimes wanders to Epperson’s grave at dusk, and my grief softens.