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.)
