I'm getting tired of titles...so I'll just call this: 4/23/12

Yesterday I made a trip to some of my favorite cemeteries; Galena, Sunbury Memorial and Trenton. I also managed to drive all the way up to Stark Cemetery. I had a photo request for the headstone of a little girl named Phoebe. She died in 1855 at the age of 13. After doing a little research, I found that her parents were buried in Iowa. Her sisters, Almeda (d. 1853 aged 1 year), Frances (d. 1855 aged 6 months) and Emma (d. 1860 aged 2 months) are also buried in Stark cemetery. I can't imagine how it must have felt to have 4 daughters die at such young ages. I'm not sure why, but there was only a photo request for Phoebe.  Almeda was listed on FindAGrave, but Frances and Emma were not. Maybe the person requesting the photo didn't even know about the others. Phoebe was probably the only one who showed up on a census record. I know they are all siblings because the headstones all say: dau. of Z.P. and M. H. (Zachariah and Margaret).

I am always a little sad to visit this cemetery. The local kids hang out here, you can tell from all the beer bottles and graffiti. There are already a lot of broken headstones and it is not well taken care of.



I know I said I don't like going to cemeteries in Licking County because I don't have the transcription logs for any of them, but I was so close-by yesterday, and the photo requests had been out there for a long time.
The first of the cemeteries I visited was called Patterson Cemetery. I wasn't worried about having to walk row-by-row as there were only about 50 graves. I had never been to this cemetery before and was a little surprised to see that it was a field with 20 or so markers. The headstones were spaced very far apart, making me think there are a lot of graves with no headstones. I couldn't find Rebecca, the one I was looking for. When I got home I did a little more research on this one only to find out that I was in the wrong Patterson Cemetery. There are 3 cemeteries in this county with the same name. Apparently I was not the only one to get them confused. I found the same people listed in each cemetery. I was lucky enough to find a cemetery transcription on-line for the largest of the 3 cemeteries and learned that this was the cemetery Rebecca was buried in, not the one I had been sent to; and there was already a photo attached to her memorial. So I sent a message out to get the duplicate memorials listed in the right cemetery or deleted.

The next cemetery was a smaller, but very old, cemetery at the back of a small neighborhood in Johnstown. Again, I had no transcript for this one, but with a little luck and intuition I found it on the first try! As I was walking in I happened to look at the Veteran's Memorial plaque at the base of the flag pole and saw the name of the man I was looking for; Abel Jewett. Once I knew he was a veteran I decided to just target the headstones with flags. I wasn't sure this would work, but if it did it would save a lot time. Sure enough, the first headstone I looked at belonged to Abel. It was leaning forward quite a bit so getting a good picture was difficult.

Finally I visited Tuller Cemetery. Yet again, no transcription log. I was worried because I had been here before and knew that many of the headstones were too worn to be easily read. Then a thought struck. Look for a big marker with the last name; go to that section and look for Moses' wife, Sharloty. Usually I try to very methodical about looking for headstones, but something told me to just look for a big marker. So I did and found her headstone a few feet away from her husband's.

All done; 2 counties, 7 cemeteries, 6 photo requests, 23 photos needed but not requested, 10 found mistakes, in under 3 hours. Not a bad day (except for the 25 mph winds.)