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        The greatest crowd in the history of Rhone County and many say the largest in Tennessee, outside of the cities, assembled last Sunday at the little Cave Creek Baptist Church, east of Kingston, for the Bush Breazeale funeral services.


        The crowd began to gather Friday night when five carloads of tourists who had heard of the unusual services, stopped and camped at Cave Creek and waited until Sunday. Early Sunday morning people began to gather for the event and thousands stood for hours waiting for Uncle Bush to appear and to hear Rev. Chas. E. Jackson, Pastor of the First Christian Church of Paris, Ill., deliver the funeral memorial sermon for a live corpse. By eight o'clock Sunday morning there were several cars there and people were walking across hills, coming in by autos and trucks and by nine o'clock it was estimated more than one thousand had gathered. From then on, until the time of the services at two p. m., the crowd continued to increase until an estimated twelve thousand had gathered. Many of the cities in East Tennessee were well-represented by hundreds who came in busloads.
        By two o'clock, the two mile road down to the Cave Creek Church had a line of parked cars on it and many were parked on the main highway. Hundreds parked in barnyards and in fields adjoining and near the church.
        When the hour set for the funeral came, the crowd began feverishly looking for the funeral procession to appear. The funeral cortege was late, as the jam along the highway delayed the procession some forty minutes. At last the hearse bearing the homemade coffin, with Bush on the front seat, appeared and the crowd was so eager to see him that the officers had difficulty in making a lane to allow the pallbearers to carry the coffin to its place in front of the tent.


        Bush was seated in front of his casket and for several minutes ran a barrage of the cameramen who took numerous pictures of him and the crowd.
        Music was furnished by the Friendly Eight Octette of Chattanooga, under the direction of Clyde A. Blaylock, singing "Where We'll Never Grow Old", "The City of Gold", and "On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand" and by Fred Berry of Knoxville, who sang, "There's a Gold Mine in the Sky."
        Uncle Felix, calm as a September morning, sat in front of the preacher, peering through overhanging sycamore branches. A slight smile played around his lips. Not seeing the crowd, but lifted up to search the blue beyond the top of a giant oak, Uncle Bush's eyes held something that was not in the faces of the crowd around him.
        The preacher heaped praise on Mr. Breazeale and referred to him as an exemplary citizen. Mr. Jackson is a former Rockwood minister. Mr. Breazeale has been a member of the Cave Creek church for 30 years.
        Rev. Jackson delivered an excellent sermon appropriate to the unusual occasion.
        "It's not a bad idea," Mr. Jackson said, referring to the funeral services for a living corpse. He said he didn't like the idea at first, but had changed his mind. "If a lot of those roughnecks out there had to face the music before they pass out, it would improve their way of living. This may mark the day of a new era in funerals."
        "It is interesting to find an individual of this type," the speaker continued, "who finds time to look into the future. It might be a wholesome thing if everyone could hear his own funeral preached."
        We are printing the sermon in full in another column of this issue.
        As the minister talked, the portable public address system blinked out and the throng pushed forward to hear his words. A woman under the canopy fainted and had to be carried out. Several others squeezed through the crowd to open air.
        Outside, three or four drink stands were busy dispensing cold pop and sandwiches. Photographers' flash bulbs exploded and children were held high in the air to peep over adults heads.
        The calmest person in the Cave Creek neighborhood was Uncle Felix, who thoroughly enjoyed the day's proceedings. At the conclusion of the formal program, he shook hands with a thousand or more friends and visitors from other sections. Many "official programs" were autographed by Mr. Breazeale, who marked his "X".
        "This will be my only funeral," he declared, "and I'm mighty well pleased with it. When I die there won't be another one."
        He hardly knows how he decided to have his funeral preached before he died. "Just like to know what the preacher would say about me, I guess."
         Mr. Breazeale, who will be 74 years old Wednesday, was born and reared in Roane County, on Dogwood Road. He never was married, explaining that he could not get the woman he wanted and wouldn't have those he could get. His closest companion is an old mule, which he contends is smarter than some people.

        Large floral wreaths of lilies, gladiolas, carnations and ferns were donated by Knoxville and Chattanooga florists and placed on the casket. At the conclusion of the 'funeral', people crowded forward to shake Uncle Bush's hand and pat the satin gleam of his casket. All four of the big floral offerings were stripped bare as a plucked chicken. Men in jeans stuck gladiola or carnation blooms into their shirt pockets or carried tight bouquets of fern and flowers. Some were taking them home to press for souvenirs.
        Sunday's memorial service climaxed the plan Uncle Felix had in mind when he started building his own casket from a walnut tree which stood near his home. He plans to be buried in it when he dies.
        For four or five hours after the 'funeral' was completed, automobiles edged along the graveled road toward major highways leading to the outside world. Soft drink trucks loaded their 'empties' and started home.
        Everyone seemed to enjoy the occasion to the fullest and hundreds lined up and shook hands with Bush after the services were over and wished him many years of life.
        Bush said that the sermon was the finest he had ever heard and was well-pleased with all the "doin's and goin's on," although he said he never intended for his funeral to be "such a big stir off." He had in mind to have a quiet affair, he said, until the newspapers got "aholt of it" and let everybody know about it.
        Bush wore his new outfit, which Halls of Knoxville had given him for the event.

He enjoyed the day perhaps more than anyone there. He is probably the only one in the United States that has ever held such a funeral.
        It is the general consensus of opinions that the "funeral" was a big success.
        After the service was over and the crowd had gone, Bush went back to his cabin home, to "Mule" -- that's his mule's name -- taking the casket with him. It may be a long, long time before Uncle Felix is ready to be placed in his homemade casket for the last long sleep. He comes from a long-lived family.

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        And the people seemed to come from everywhere for the funeral. One man counted cars from fourteen states. We know of cars from Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Washington, Arkansas, Illinois, Tennessee, Alabama, NewYork, Louisiana, and Missouri. Among the out of state visitors were Paul Woosie of Atlanta, N. Y., Hugh Breazeale of Fonders, Ky., George Littleton of Oakdale, Wash., John Harrison of S. C., Wm. Littleton and daughter of Osceola, Ark., Louis, John E., and John D. Humble and their wives from Jamestown, Ky., Mrs. H. A. Gentry of Monroe, La. and Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Holder of Newport, Ark. There were hundreds of other visitors from other states.
        The press was well-represented including the Knoxville News-Sentinel and Journal, the Chattanooga Times, News and Free Press, each paper having a battery of editors, reporters, and cameramen. The Associated Press sent their Knoxville manager, Don Whitehead, to cover the event.
        Hundreds of pictures were taken of Bush and the crowd by these newsmen and the papers blossomed out in their editions Monday with big front page spreads of the event. It was the biggest news for the newspapers in many a long moon. One veteran reporter said it was the biggest rural crowd he had ever seen in Tennessee and estimated it to contain at least 12,000 people.