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?