Green Lawn...again.

I went back to Green Lawn Cemetery on Monday. I had about 24 names in 5 sections. I knew it wouldn't take long because many of them were families. I really only had to look for 12 plots. But you never know when there will be workers mowing or a funeral occurring in the precise area you're poking around in, so I wanted to get an early start anyway. As soon as the last child got on the bus, I jumped in the car. A quick stop at Tim Horton's and I was on my way.

The first half of the day was fairly uneventful. I found most of the headstones I was looking for. Although I did run into one mystery; the Phillip Van Fossan plot, where I had a request for three pictures. I found the plot, but there were no headstones on it. All I could find was a small square cornerstone with the initials P. V. F. I find it interesting that there was a cornerstone, but no headstones. I assume it was a cornerstone as it was not near the center of the plot, but closer to the next plot. Maybe the cornerstone was purchased and erected when the plot was bought and by the time someone died there was no money for the headstones. Or perhaps the headstones were destroyed somehow. Oh well,  I guess I'll never know.

I finished up that round of pictures just before noon. I had no idea where to get lunch, but I knew there wasn't anything near the front entrance. Since I had never been out the back gate before I thought I would give it a try. I never worry too much about getting lost. I'm pretty good with directions and besides, I had the iPhone. Lucky me, there was a McDonalds right on the next corner. I thought about it and decided to eat as quick as possible. After all it was lunch time and I wanted to go to the cemetery office to get 4 more maps. I didn't want to interrupt anyone's lunchtime and get the double-glare. It's bad enough just asking for the maps! I already knew which maps I wanted so I gave the man my sticky note and waited. I noticed a pamphlet for the cemetery which had an index of famous burials and interesting headstones. That could provide me with something interesting to write about and post pictures of, I thought; so I grabbed it.

Coral appearing monument

Indian Chief

I was happy to see that one of my favorite monuments was on the list. If you've ever been to Green Lawn you'll probably recognize it. The pamphlet calls it a "coral appearing monument". It reminds me of the kinds of little graveyards I saw in Mexico.
Also on the list of interesting monuments was one of an Indian Chief. I had seen it on the way in and made a mental note to take a picture of it on my way out.
I also took a picture of a bronze fisherman, just because I was in the area. I wish I knew more about the stories of these monuments, but the pamphlet only mentions the names and locations. There are more on the list, but I will save those for another day.

Bronze fisherman

I also passed by a nice little family monument and the sun was shinning from behind it right through a stained glass window. It was so beautiful, I had to stop.




Ok, back to the task at hand. I got the 4 new maps and was able to find about 10 more family plots. I did get side tracked on one. I saw an older couple walking around, map in hand. My first thought was letterboxers? But the papers didn't look like clues, so I figured they were looking for headstones. I asked who they were looking for just to make sure we weren't out taking pictures of the same headstones. As it turned out they were from Washington (state, not DC) and they were looking for a long lost great-grand father. Luckily someone had posted a picture of his headstone on the FindAGrave website, so we were able to find it fairly quickly. There were several family members in that plot, but the headstones were very hard to read. At first I was mortified when the husband went to the car for a scrub brush and 409 to clean the headstones! But I got over it. After all they were his relatives and how much damage was it really going to do? I was just glad he was able to find them at all. My husband asks why I do this, and there's the answer. The satisfaction of knowing you helped some one find a puzzle piece that was missing.

Lots of Work

I was surprised to find out Tuesday morning that the baby was going to Grandma and Grandpa's. I just planned to stay home and do laundry since it was raining. Then around 10:30 it started to clear up and I got the fever.

Camp Chase Monument

I wanted to go to Camp Chase, the Civil War prisoner encampment cemetery, but then what? I only had 2 requests. Even if I had to search each marker, there were only 2,000 something of them, it wouldn't take that long. I know, it sounds like a lot of markers, but this is a military cemetery. All the rows are nice and straight and the graves are close together. Most of them are uniformly printed, so the soldier's last name is always in the same place. But what would I do with the rest of the day?

Green Lawn was close by, but that cemetery drove me crazy last time I was there. First of all, it's huge! Over 100,000 headstones, and over 400 photo requests. Although, I did already have much of the information about where the people were. I got that during the spring when I spent 2 full 6 hour days in the downtown library, going through their cemetery records on microfilm, A-Z! 
The second thing that drives me crazy about Green Lawn is the office staff. You can get a map of the whole cemetery online, but that will not help much in tracking down the headstones. For that you need section maps. There are about 100 sections, so about 100 section maps I would think. Well, you can only request 3 or 4 section maps per visit. And even that few will get you an icy glare from the person at the front desk.
Lastly, Green Lawn is not a normal cemetery. I like order and symmetry. At Green Lawn the sections are not square, nor even rectangular. Some are round, some are oval, some are just a blob. This makes for very odd groupings of headstones; some this way, some that way...but nothing resembling normalcy. Just thinking about it makes my ADD brain hurt.
But, it was close by. And there were so many requests. And I had spare time.

The first order of business was to look at my spreadsheet from the info I got at the library. What sections had the largest concentration of photo requests (6 months ago!)? How many of the requests were still open? After checking on the FindAGrave site, I found that about 90% were still open! What? Doesn't anyone go to Green Lawn? That sealed the deal. I felt compelled to go.

Camp Chase Monument

Since I didn't know how long it would take at Camp Chase, I went there first. It was just beautiful! All nice and neatly laid out. Being a Southerner at heart (and by birth) I got a little weepy walking all those rows. I saw a couple of sir names that I recognized; like Corley and Sease. They were both from South Carolina, so it's possible we could be related.
I didn't find the names I was looking for, which is sad. One of the requests even had a grave number listed for it, but that grave was missing a headstone. I don't know if the person was really buried there or not. Either way there was nothing to take a picture of. The other name, I just couldn't find. I took some pictures of the monuments anyway, just so I would have something to post here.

At Green Lawn I had about 29 names in 5 sections. Last time I was there it was for a letterboxing event and I had asked some friends to go in and get me a few maps, since I had already used up my daily allotment. So I already had several of the ones I needed, but I went in a got a few more anyway. I didn't think there was enough time to get all the pictures I wanted. Better to have too many planned than not enough right? (Kind of the same with letterboxing clues.) Somehow I managed to get them all! It wasn't nearly as hard following the section maps as it had been 3 months ago. I guess having more experience at this has given me more intuition as well , and I didn't give up as easily as I used to. I took the last picture, drove home and still had a few minutes to relax before the kids got off the bus.
Since it went so well, I like Green Lawn much more now. Requests are pretty well taken care of in my neck of the woods; only 1 or 2 requests in several cemeteries. I think I will make Green Lawn my priority for now. I'll try to get over there on my free days until the weather gets too bad. Then I can spend some time at the library researching the newer requests.
Bad news for my readers; spending so much time at the same cemetery is really going to make for a boring blog! Oh well. Maybe I'll find something interesting to write about.

Military Tribute

Since Monday is a holiday, and all the kids will be home, I probably won't get out to any of the cemeteries. To make up for that, I decided to post some pictures that I had previously taken.

Several weeks ago I was in the vicinity of the Ohio Fallen Heroes Memorial. I really love visiting that little park. (I even planted a letterbox in it, but it's gone now.)  The memorial was established in 2005 as a tribute to all of the men and women in uniform from Ohio that were killed in the Global War on Terrorism since September 11, 2001.

Ohio Fallen Heroes Memorial

Eternal Flame

The most recognized name in this park is Sgt. Keith Matt Maupin, from Batavia Ohio.
April 10, 2004- Maupin was captured near Baghdad,  Iraq,  when his convoy came under attack by individuals using rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire.
April 16, 2004- Maupin was listed as MIA.
June 28, 2004- Arabic-language television network, Al Jazeera, aired a low-quality video purportedly depicting Maupin's execution.
June 30, 2004- an Army spokesman said the video was "totally inconclusive."
March 29, 2008- an armed forces medical examiner confirmed that human remains recovered in Iraq were those of Sgt. Maupin.


Since I only have a few pictures of the memorial, and I have a military theme going, I will also post some pictures of veteran's markers taken in Westerville cemeteries.

War of 1812

Revolutionary War

Civil War

I had to look up what SAR stood for. At first I thought it was ASR, but that didn't bring up any results that made since. So I tried some other key words and realized it was SAR; Sons of the American Revolution.











 I also had to look up GAR. It stands for Grand Army of the Republic. Being in Ohio all of the Civil War markers I have found are Union Soldiers. I will have to make a trip to Camp Chase soon  so I can get a picture of a Confederate marker.

Spanish American War

I haven't seen any of the Spanish American War markers on actual graves, but there is a war memorial in Otterbein Cemetery and this is one of the markers featured. Now that I know what it looks like I will be able to spot its unique shape from a distance. I'll keep on the look out for a veteran of this war.  






    

World War I

World War II

Korea

Vietnam

Ok. I didn't think I would have any free time to go to a cemetery, but I realized I didn't have a Vietnam War marker. I just couldn't leave the list incomplete! I had to try, right? At least Blendon is really close so it's a quick trip. This was a tricky marker to find. It is similar to the WWI marker so it's hard to spot from a distance. I drove around for a few minutes before I spotted one. Then I realized that there is also one in the veterans memorial area. Next time, I'll look there first.

When I got home and started posting the pictures and writing about the Fallen Heroes Memorial, it dawned on me that I didn't have any markers from the Persian Gulf War, Iraq War or Afghanistan War. I did some quick research and found that there are at least 2 Iraq War veterans buried in Blendon Cemetery. So off I go...again. Unfortunately, the office is closed on Saturdays and if I wanted to find them I would have to drive up and down. That's like looking for a needle in a haystack! Blendon is a large cemetery. I actually found one of the two men, but he did not have a marker. A military plaque, 4 American flags, lots of flowers and little tchotchkes, but no marker. Oh well, I know there is another soldier buried in Berkshire Cemetery and he has a marker; I saw it on his FindAGrave memorial page. Next time I am in that area, I'll have to stop in and take a picture. Maybe I can get a complete set of military grave marker pictures.

Shots in the Dark

Today I started with a list of 10 names in 6 cemeteries; Hunt, Trenton, Stark, Blue Church, Sunbury Memorial, and Galena. I figured it would take awhile because I only had plot information on 2 of the names in 1 cemetery. All of the others I would have to walk row-by-row. But I was kid free again, so I had plenty of time.

Hunt Cemetery

I had been to Hunt Cemetery before and remembered there weren't very many headstones, maybe 150 or so. There's a small pull off to park in on the corner and a short walk through an open field to get to the cemetery. The grass had recently been mowed and being 9:00 in the morning all the clippings were wet. I'm just glad I thought to wear tennis shoes and not my regular flip-flops.

When I walk a cemetery row-by-row I always see which way the names on the headstones are facing and start with the very front row. (As opposed to starting with whichever row is closest to where I park.) As I was walking to the back of the property (western most edge) I happened to look over my left shoulder to adjust the camera strap. I saw the headstone I was looking for out of the corner of my eye. What luck! That took less than 3 minutes. And I got a photo of the husband's headstone as well.

I had 4 names in Trenton Cemetery. One Cheadle and three Walkers. I was hoping I could just drive through and find the names. It's times like this that I wish I had an automatic transmission. Even though I only had photo requests for 3 Walkers, I had looked up on the FindAGrave website and noticed that there were 4 other Walkers that did not have photos attached to their memorial page. I also learned from the county burials website that there were 2 additional Walkers that did not even have a memorial page on FindAGrave. Out of 9 Walkers I only found 3 with the drive-by method; and no Cheadles. I had the burial dates, so I knew about where in the cemetery 6 of the Walkers might be, so I started walking rows. Still nothing. Time to go find the caretaker, Rodney. He didn't even have to think twice about the Cheadles; pointed them right out. He had gone to school with the couples' kids. I had driven right by it and looked at it, but it was far off and low to the ground. From that angle I couldn't quite make out the name. He wasn't sure about the remaining Walkers. He pointed me in the direction of an area across the drive from the section I had already walked and said to start there while he went to the shop to grab his map. I found the headstone right as he walked out of the shop. It was one big family marker with 5 names on it. That just left 1 Walker. When I told Rodney the first name, he pointed right to the grave. He also went to school with this man's son. Now that I had all the pictures that I needed, the tricky part was to make it out of the cemetery. Rodney has great stories and we usually talk for a long time. I still had 4 more cemeteries to visit. As feared we talked about 2 hours! I learned why there is a field in front of Hunt Cemetery. The church that built the cemetery used to be there, but it was razed many years ago. I learned a little about the trend in headstone styles. Before the 1900s, they were made out of limestone, as that is what was available locally. Even when the railroads appeared, not many families could afford to have granite brought in from the east. As more families prospered it became more of the fashion to have big, elaborate, granite and marble headstones. Then the Depression hit and the headstones became smaller and more plain for a time. Then after WWII things picked up again.

I heard a lot of other things that I can't remember off the top of my head. Rodney even showed me the lot where he would one day be buried. Just in case I ever need to take his photo, I guess. By the time I got out of there I was starving. I took a look at my list and knew the next cemetery would be another row-by-row walk and it was a big, spread out area. So I decided to skip it; for now.

Blue Church Cemetery

At Blue Church Cemetery I was looking for Mary Gaston and her husband James. I had found pictures of their headstones on another website. It would have been easy to copy the images and put them on FindAGrave, but that is a copyright infringement. I needed to actually take the pictures myself. At least I knew what they looked like, so it was a pretty quick search.  I thought this cemetery was a little odd. There was a central drive with headstones on both sides of it. Usually you can see where the first headstones were put and as you go farther away from that point, the headstones are more recent. But this one seemed to have old and new mixed together on both sides of the drive. And why was it called Blue Church? I didn't see anything resembling a church. On my way out of the back side of the cemetery, behind some bushes, I found the remains of the church. All that is left is the church bell and a sign.

Bell from Old Blue Church

I had 2 names for Sunbury Memorial. One was left over from last week. The memorial page listed the lady as Marie Shannon Holland, while the cemetery office had her listed as Frances M. Holland. The memorial page also had an incorrect date of death; off by one year. This explains why I couldn't find her last time. It really didn't make a difference. She didn't have a headstone anyway. I already had the plot information for John W Culver. He was buried in a family plot with about 7 relatives. All the others already had photos attached to their memorial pages. I thought this was strange. It took me a few minutes to find him. As it turns out he was on the back side of the family marker. His mother was on the right side and his father on the left. When the original photographer took pictures they must not have walked all the way around the obelisk and missed seeing his name. It wasn't until I got home that I realized I already had a picture of him. I had taken it in the spring when I had a request for his nephew Jay. I'm not sure why I didn't just post the picture then?!?

My last stop for the day was Galena Cemetery. I didn't think there was any chance of finding this one. Daniel Weeks was buried in 1817. If there was still a headstone, it would probably be impossible to read. Again it was a walk row-by-row search. But where to start? This cemetery had 3 distinct sections of older headstone with sections of newer stones mixed in. Of course the Week family plot was in the last of the three! All of the headstones already had photos attached, except Daniel Sr. I did find Mary, Daniel's wife who was buried in 1811, so maybe his was still in good shape too. But I never did find it. I have a name and number for the caretaker, so maybe I can have him check his records and get a better idea of where Daniel might be. I also found the headstone of a mother and daughter with the last name Weeks that was not on the FindAGrave site. I wrote down all of their information and created memorial pages for them. When I went to attach photos of the headstone, I couldn't find the pictures. Was I just scatterbrained and forgot to take the picture? Or did someone not want their picture taken?    

Bonus, Not!

I didn't expect to get out today, but surprise!
My husband wanted to work from home today so he could watch the Glenn Beck special. He had a conference call at 10 am, and I saw great excuse to "get the baby out of the house" so he could have some peace and quite while on the phone. I didn't have any info ready to go, so I quickly wrote down the names of the 5 requests in Blendon Cemetery. I was so excited because these requests just showed up last night. Due to the limited time I had to get ready, not to mention that the printer isn't hooked up to my computer right now, I only wrote down names and birth and death dates. I found it strange that all of the requests were by the same person, but none of the people seemed to be related. Even more strange was the fact that they all died between 9-4 and 10-30 of 2010.
Since I already have a map of the cemetery, I just needed to go to the office to get the plot information on each name. After I got the information I needed, I mentioned that I had been there last week to look in the old section for Catherine Noble. The caretaker told me that several of the Noble headstone were down to get repairs done. I commented that I noticed the large empty area near the other Noble headstones and thought that maybe she was there without a headstone. The caretaker told me that there are areas of the older section that have several unknown burials. Apparently long ago it was common practice for families that didn't have enough money to pay for a burial to do it themselves in the middle of the night. As a result there are areas with no markers to indicate who was buried nor where exactly they are.
The caretaker also asked if I had noticed how uneven the ground in the old section is compared to the rest of the cemetery. She told me to be careful and watch where I step in that area. In the early days of the cemetery, there were no requirements for bodies to be in vaults of any kind. When the bodies decomposed the earth above them would sink. I love visiting her office! She has been there a long time and is a wealth of information.
We found all of the names I was looking for in the cemetery office database, but when we went out to look for the headstones, none of them had been erected yet. So I have no pictures to post on FindAGrave. I will save the plot information in my notebook and keep checking back. Luckily I live right around the corner and drive by often.
Since I didn't take any pictures to post today, I'll explain the picture that is above the "Blog Archive" section. This is a family marker in Blendon Cemetery. A couple bought the entire section (about 240 plots) at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars. They did not want anyone buried near them, including their children. You can't really tell from the picture, but this marker stands out in the middle of a huge open area, surrounded on 3 sides by headstones. It is the tallest marker in the whole cemetery and can be seen clearly from both roads that border the cemetery. Truly remarkable.
 

3-in-1

Mondays are my 2 year old's day with Grandma and Grandpa, so I decided to spend the day in a larger cemetery where I had several photo requests. I headed over to Berlin Township Cemetery with 12 requests, and another 95 names that were not requests. I usually try to find all the people with the same last names as the requested photos. It's easier for me to look for "Smith" and take a picture than it is to look for "Smith, John" and ignore all the other Smiths. Although I do check which "Smiths" already have photos and ignore them.

 A  little history about Berlin Township Cemetery. It's really 3 cemeteries in one location. Back in the 1970s, when Alum Creek Reservoir was being built several cemeteries needed to be moved; Blockhouse Cemetery (aka McNamara Cemetery), Berlin House Cemetery and the old Cheshire Cemetery. According to reports I've read, many of the headstones were in bad condition; being either broken or missing. When they moved the graves they were unable to identify a large portion of them. Today you will find a lot of markers reading "Unknown". Some of them have dates, some don't.

One of the reasons I like this cemetery is because they have a huge sign out front. On one side is a map of the whole cemetery and on the other side is a listing of all the people buried there! I'm not sure how up to date it is, but it does help. Unless you're looking for someone buried in the Blockhouse or Townhouse sections; or the person you are looking for is one of the Unknowns.
I spent about 3 hours here, looking for all the Lackeys (a big name in this area ~ with Lackey-Old State Rd. right around the corner),  Rusts, Nettletons, Thompsons, Gardners, and Janes/Jaynes. That last one started to really get to me. The spelling of the name is very inconsistent. In the end I wound up with 66 pictures. Of course when I got home I noticed the majority of them had to be rotated slightly. My head must not have been on straight!

After a 30 minute wait at Subway to get lunch, I went over to Sunbury Memorial Park to fill a few requests. I have maps of this cemetery with names, but I still like to stop in the office to get the info from the caretaker. She always tells me a little extra info about the people. Today I learned that one of the ladies I was looking for was murdered by her husband! Cause of death - gunshot wound. It's amazing what what you can learn from the index cards.
The Sunbury Memorial Park is right across the street from a really cool Fallen Heroes Memorial, so I ran over to get some pictures of it too. Unfortunately my camera's memory card ran out of space after only one picture. Oh well, at least I got all the headstones I wanted to.

The Big Three

Blendon Cemetery ~ Old Section

Yesterday was the first day back to school for the big kids, so today my 2 year old and I set out to fulfill a few photo requests in our favorite cemeteries; Pioneer, Otterbein, and Blendon.

Our first stop was Pioneer Cemetery looking for Thomas Robinson. This is such an easy cemetery to navigate. The Westerville community website has an interactive map! All you have to do is enter the person's name and you can see exactly where they are buried. Click on a few links and you can get their obituary, burial plot information and often times there are already photos of the headstone. Unfortunately the website stated that Mr. Robinson did not have a headstone; but just in case we wanted to verify that. Sure enough...he didn't.

Our next stop was Otterbein Cemetery to find Harold DeWitt and his wife Opal. I have a map of this cemetery, but it does not indicate who is buried where. I don't even have a phone number for a caretaker, so whenever I have a request, I have to search the whole cemetery. I usually start by driving through very slowly looking for the person's last name. If I come up empty handed with that method then I get out and walk row by row. This is not always easy with a toddler in tow. On this trip I got lucky. Halfway down the first drive, front row; there they were! And a good thing too. The headstone was flat and would have been impossible to read had it been several rows back.

Julie taking a breather.

Finally we headed over to Blendon Cemetery to look for Catherine E Noble. I didn't expect to find her, but was looking forward to the visit anyway. Blendon is my favorite. The caretaker is very nice and has set me up with some helpful maps. This particular headstone was erected in the 1870s. I knew it would be in the old section, which, unfortunately, is not recorded very well. It seems their was a fire in the late 1800s and most of the paperwork was destroyed. I had already checked the cemetery index and found the listing for Catherine's  spouse and children. I was able to follow the inscription log to their graves, but could not find her headstone. There is a lot of open land nearby and she is probably in that area, having died some 20 years after her husband. According to the Franklin County Genealogical Society website there are about 5 Nobles buried in Blendon that are unaccounted for. So we didn't find her, but we were able to get a picture of the headstone of two other Noble children that were not on the FindAGrave site.
 
Overall, not bad for only being out for about an hour! :)