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! :)