Rose Family Cemetery
Located just south of the 27/63 intersection in Huntsville, just outside the state highway right-of-way and enclosed in chain-link fencing, is the Rose Family Cemetery. Dating back to the mid 1950s, this well-kept cemetery is small, consisting of only seven graves, and not necessarily active; only two burials have been added to the cemetery since 1980, and none since 2009.
It started with a baby’s grave
Like so many cemeteries in Scott County and, really, just about anywhere else, this cemetery started with the burial of a baby.
In 1955, Sharon Kay Stephens died less than one month before her second birthday. Her headstone reads, “Our Little Angel.”
Sharon Kay was the daughter of John Estle Stephens (1932-2001) and Norma Jean Rose (1932-2009). Her parents are the two burials that have taken place at the small family cemetery since 1980.
Tragedy struck the Stephens family again in 1956, when baby Michael Ray died. He was Sharon Kay’s brother, born and died on Aug. 28, 1956.
The Stephens family
John and Norma Jean would have five more children who survived: sons Rick, Mike, and Terry, and daughters Sue and Patty. At the time of Norma Jean’s death in 2009, they had 14 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Most of their children moved away from Scott County, but Terry and his wife, Veronica, still live in Oneida. Daughter, Sue, later returned to Oneida, as well.
John Estle Stephens, born Sept. 8, 1932 in Scott County, was the son of Louis Stephens and Mildred Goad. Norma Jean Rose was born Jan. 19, 1932 in Pennington Gap, Va., the daughter of Walker Freeman Rose and Gola Kidd.
The Rose family
The small family cemetery at the 27/63 intersection took on the name of the Rose family, and that’s where Norma Jean’s parents, Walker Freeman and Gola Kidd Rose, would both be buried.
Walker Freeman Rose, born in 1895, was a World War I veteran and a career coal miner. The son of Milford Rose and Parlia Warman, he was born in McCreary County. His parents were actually married in Scott County in 1884. But they lived most of their lives in Kentucky, in the Parkers Lake area of northern McCreary County.
Walker met and married Gola “Goldie” Kidd in Scott County on Oct. 15, 1919. Born in 1899, she was the daughter of William Marion Kidd and Sarah L. Strunk.
Walker worked as a farm hand as a teenager, but soon went to work in the coal mines after reaching adulthood. It was work in the mines that took him from his native McCreary County to Virginia, where he worked as a machine hand. That’s where Norma Jean, the fifth-oldest of seven children, was born.
Walker eventually was promoted to mine foreman, and had the opportunity to come back home. The family had settled in the Straight Fork area of eastern Scott County by 1940, with Walker overseeing operations at a mine there. And it was in Scott County that Norma Jean and John met. They were married on July 23, 1952.
The family cemetery
The Rose Family Cemetery began with the deaths of Sharon Kay Stephens in 1955 and Michael Ray Stephens in 1956.
Walker died on Dec. 5, 1968 and was buried next to his grandchildren. Goldie died on April 7, 1980 and was buried there, as well.
On Aug. 22, 1980, Estal Rose died at age 65 in Texas. He was returned to Scott County for burial in the family cemetery. He was a son of Walker and Goldie — Norma Jean’s brother.
That was the last burial at the cemetery until 2001, when John was buried there. Norma Jean was buried there in 2009.