A North Texas woman was laid to rest next to her beloved husband Wednesday afternoon at the Tin Top Cemetery outside Weatherford. The burial happened one day after the graveside service when Georgia Faye Rhodes was supposed to be buried.
On Tuesday, relatives held a funeral for 88-year old Rhodes, who wished to be buried next to her husband of 53 years at Tin Top Cemetery.
However, the funeral home told the family there was an issue with digging through rocks at the proper grave site. Soon after, they took the task into their own hands by digging the grave themselves.
Alerted to the sound of jack hammering, people in the vicinity of the cemetery joined in to help by taking shifts breaking through the rocky top soil, said Shelby Bartels, who shared the story with NBC DFW.
"The ladies made sandwiches, cold drinks and watermelon," wrote Bartels. "It has to be four hours and they are still digging by hand and jack hammer Ms. Georgia's grave!!!"
Relatives said everyone worked for more than six hours into the early hours of Wednesday morning to fulfill Rhodes' wish.
"That's the only place she would have been buried was next to him," said Richard Massey, who attened Windmill Church of Christ with Rhodes. "The family understood that. That's why they were working to hard to prepare that place for her."
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
"I don't think we'll have another ceremony, but I think that this is a testament to a dying breed of people who really care about their own culture, their family ... something that is not prevalent in our society. And I'm proud," one relative told NBC DFW.
NBC 5's Noelle Walker contributed to this report.
