Some Things I Will Never Understand - Updated

To quote Fezzini, "Inconceivable!" 

I never cease to be stunned? Puzzled? Flabbergasted? Floored? Pick your adjective, whatever it may be, but the sentiment remains the same: People are often beyond my ability to fathom.

Such was the case today when we visited a family cemetery dating from the 1800s to the mid 1970s. Seeing an abandoned and overgrown private burial ground is anything but new. And this place certainly is abandoned and overgrown. But seeing one that has gone to seed within one's own lifespan is another experience entirely. Granted, the last burial here was 44 years ago and that makes old Br'er, well, damned old. But that does nothing to abate the shock.

No, none of that is beyond my understanding. People move away, die, forget, don't care, and myriad other factors.

In this case I cannot understand failing to update Find A Grave. What we found makes no sense whatsoever.

To elaborate....

Someone when to the effort to create the cemetery in Find A Grave specifically for a family and named it after the patriarch of that family, a man himself buried in the cemetery and marked with a massive headstone shared with his wife. But they do not take the minute or less to enter his grave? Nor any save one - ONE - of at least 16 other marked graves in the cemetery!

No, only one grave is recorded in the cemetery. Granted, that memorial is extensive. Numerous children are detailed and their memorials linked. An extensive biography is given. Several photographs shared. Considerable and laudable work to be sure. But someone with no obvious link to the family for whom the cemetery is named! And whose marker was not laid until some 51 years after her passing!

I can understand not creating memorials for people suspected to be interned but for whom there is no known proof of burial. I can even understand not creating memorials for those known to be buried in a cemetery but for whom there is no marker. (Though the latter case is harder to fathom)

But not adding the grave of the person for whom the cemetery is named and for whom there is a marker some 4 feet tall in plain view? I mean, it only took about 30 minutes to stomp through the briars and brambles and add all 16 other marked graves in the cemetery!

Not making the effort, that I will never understand.

Update:

Since posting I spent some time trying to at least identify and link the parent/child and/or spousal relationships for the memorials here. In doing this I happened to find at least two individuals who have existing Find A Grave memorials with extensive familial links.

In the wrong cemetery!

Yup. Right people, wrong place. And yes, I have submitted merge requests for these.

I think the error is entirely understandable. Some obituary data lists the burials off a certain road. And indeed, both cemeteries are just off that road though some 2 miles apart. The main difference being this is a small, little known and not easily found site where the other is a large, well identified municipal cemetery. Whoever created the original memorials probably just assumed they were buried in the obvious cemetery. 

Easy enough mistake to make. Especially considering that most cemeteries have considerable numbers of unmarked graves.

I will be interested to see how Find A Grave reacts to my duplicate reports. Ordinarily the process is to merge all the data into the first memorial created. As it is in the wrong cemetery I reversed the merge order and noted that 1) the new memorial has photos of the headstone, 2) is GPS tagged, 3) the original memorial has neither of these, and 4) the new memorial was verified by on site visitation!

Standing by to stand by and see what they have to say.

Researching the individuals proved to be something of an exercise in frustration. To say that these people left virtually no paper trail is to be kind. 

I often encounter this in the cases of infants and children born and passing away between the Censuses. Usually the only record of their ever living is a headstone. Sometimes there is a birth or death certificate, but only in more modern times. On really rare occasions someone has scanned or photographed a family bible listing births and deaths.

But this time I am looking at adults married and having children! Augh! To be fair, this is a case of the 1890 Census Curse. This is when much of their data would have been collected.

But I keep hitting cases where people simply vanish from the records, only appear once, or, worse, never appear at all. An example here is someone born about 1877, not appearing in the 1880 census for whatever reason, obviously not being in an 1890 census, passing in 1899. 

A little extra digging - and a LOT of luck - found a list of burials by cemetery in the county, and this site was listed! It had three additional burials listed for which there are no markers. There are, however, several stones set to denote a grave as well as at least one location that clearly appears to be two sunken graves. So while it doesn't look like every person is accounted for, every one that can be accounted for is listed in the system.

In any event I have done what I can do with what I have. Honor has been satisfied.

Retreads

Retread. The term means different things to different people depending on the context in which it is used. Vehicles? Especially semis and aircraft? It means tires that have a new strip of rubber treading applied to an existing tire instead of manufacturing a whole new tire. Retreads use less rubber and are less expensive.

Speaking of the military? Today it usually means someone who served a hitch in one military branch, was discharged, and at some time later enlisted for another hitch in an entirely different branch. Examples from a couple of people I know. One served four years as a Marine, was a civilian for a couple of years then signed on with the Army. Another was a Sailor for a hitch, got out then also joined the Army for a hitch or two. Both of them are considered Retreads. Old service members brought back to another branch.

But this was not the original meaning of the term. Originally it applied to someone who served in World War I and was recalled or signed up again to serve in World War II. Remember that there was a two decade gap between the end of WWI and the start of WWII. 

A year or so ago I took on the task of auditing a nearby church cemetery. A quick visual scan made me pretty certain that there were a number of graves in it not noted in Find A Grave. So I spend a few afternoons systematically examining every marker that I could find and insuring it was accurately listed in the system. In the end I came close to doubling the number of memorials listed for the cemetery.

One of these was one of the very few real, old school, original definition Retreads I have ever seen.

I noted that Staff Sergeant Miller was born just over a month before my paternal grandfather. Sadly he passed some six years before my grandfather who himself passed away four months before I was born. I could only wonder if he, too, had grandchildren who would never have the opportunity to know him.

One of these days I am going to get my hands on D/2 Biological Cleaner and see just how well it removes the stains from stones like these. These people deserve it.

I can't believe I actually got the whole story this time!

 Any time you encounter a gap of almost a century (98 years in this case) between burials in a cemetery any normal person has a LOT of questions. Not the least of which is 'Why the long inactive period?' And obviously 'How is the latter person related to others in the cemetery, or is there a relationship at all?' I encountered another case recently where there was nearly a century between internments in a family cemetery. In that case there was a direct relationship between the latter person and others in the cemetery. Specifically his Great-Grandparents and Great-Great-Grandparents.

This time there is no obvious link.

To back up a moment and give some history. If you spend any amount of time out in the deep rural areas -pasture lands and farms - you will see the occasional copse of trees out in a field. Often, if you do a little snooping and checking, you will find that there are graves among those trees. Remember that in the early years of settling lands it was the common practice to bury people on the family land. There were few other options. Some churches had burial space, others not. And there being few towns and no real cities, there were even fewer burial spaces available. 

My father had spotted on such stand of trees and wanted to explore it. So we did.

I also learn during this excursion that I had relatives in this area (indeed, they once owned this precise tract of land!), though to the best of all knowledge currently available, there is no relationship to any of the individuals in this little cemetery.

We snoop, stomp, and generally investigate the site and all 8 headstones recorded in it. As is SOP, I update the GPS locations for all the markers in Find A Grave.

But this one outlier grave haunts me. I mention this to the parental unit. He wants to know as well. And he is far bolder than I. So we end up a few hundred yards further down the road at the home of what is probably the current owner. 

At least the pack of dogs who greet the car are friendly if vocal. 

We introduce ourselves and start to explain ourselves when he interrupts and says we must be the ones who were just in the cemetery.

You gotta love the Country. Any stranger snooping around is a hot topic and word is passed at the speed of light.

We chat for a moment or two before getting to the point: What is the story on this one grave? We were not prepared for the reaction. The man was moved to the very verge of tears and it took him a couple of moments to compose himself.

He relates the story. Fred, the person in question, was what today is usually called 'Special Needs'. He was mentally challenged and subject to physical challenges such as seizures. He was kinda, sorta unofficially adopted and given a job working around the farm. Clearly the land owner cared deeply to this young man. Apparently young Fred had often stated that he never wanted to be anywhere other than the farm; that he never wanted to leave. So when he passed away his kin asked if his ashes could be placed in the cemetery on the farm and a memorial erected for him there. Obviously the answer was 'Yes'.

The Bestest Son

I was fully prepared to ask about 'The Bestest Son". Indeed I was beginning to utter the question when I was cut off and given the answer before I could ask the question.

Fred, it turned out, had two brothers. They were, to be kind, not the most upstanding of citizens though they were to saddled with the same challenges as Fred. This was not a secret. Fred knew of his brothers' faults and decided that he was "The Bestest Son" of the three.

The last little tidbit dropped on us was that there used to be a 9th marker in the cemetery with a death date of 1793, but it hasn't been seen in years. He could recall seeing it once, and the general area where it was. This was separate from the 2 to 3 dozen obvious unmarked graves.

Yes, I made it clear that the land owner should not be at all alarmed if he sees me searching for that missing headstone. 

Sisters, Sisters

I have a sick penchant for rewriting song lyrics. And I have a love for words that borders on the unnatural. 

There are times when the two combine in the most horrible bad taste. Such was the case auditing this cemetery.

In one area I noted the graves of Lillie and Lura (what a name!) Brand in a large family plot. Something about the whole site struck me oddly. At first I could not put my finger on what it was. But it kept bugging me like an itch in my brain.

Eventually it struck me - these are spinsters, not wives of brothers! Spinster is on of those words that I love. It is so precise and evocative!

Usually when I see graves of unmarried women they passed away early in life. Not these two. Lillie was 55 when she passed away. Lura surpassed her by reaching age 81. No way these are women who passed before having the opportunity to wed.

No, these two had to be spinsters for specific reasons. 

My imagination reels. Were they too independent? Had no interest in men? Mentally unfit ('special')? Ugly as home-made sin? What were their reasons? Another of those mysteries I will never know the answer to.

Edit: 

Damn! I neglected to tie in the title. And the tie in was very much in mind when this was originally written.

Harken back the the 1954 film White Christmas. We are introduced to the characters played by Vera Ellen and Rosemary Clooney during their nightclub act. The do a routine to the song 'Sisters'. I kept thinking about rewriting the lyrics replacing Sisters with Spinsters.

Spinsters,
Spinsters,
There were never more confirmed spinsters.

No gentlemen ever came to call, no sir.
I needn't keep my eye on her.

You can see where that was going. Can't believe I forgot to include the reasoning.

Just damn.

Rest In Peace? Are you serious? - Richey Cemetery

 The best laid plans and all that. When Samuel Richey was laid to rest, and a few years later his wife, Mary, joined him, they were interred on what was undoubtedly their farmland in rural Gwinnett County, Georgia. In all probability there was nothing and no one nearby. Quiet. Peaceful. Bucolic. Everything one could desire in a final resting place.

Somewhere between 1855 (when Mary passed away) and today changes took place. A road and a railroad cut across the land. As best as I can determine, the railroad came well after the 1880s. I could find an 1884 map of Georgia rail lines and there is nothing near the location. Odds are that it was built well into the 20th century. The road date is much harder to pin down.

In any event the result of these two constructions was to leave Samuel and Mary isolated in what is designated as the railroad right of way between the two. Sadly this is a neglected and trash riddled area. Their false tomb markers - impressive for their day - are in danger of being lost and destroyed. Recently a tree has fallen on Samuel's grave. One of Mary's side tomb walls (very thick granite) has fallen over.

These are images from an earlier time when the graves were in better condition.

Here you can see the side wall having fallen from Mary's False Tomb. That sucker is some 8+ inches thick in the middle, and about 6 or 7 feet long. Solid Granite. There is no resetting it without multiple people and a lot of mechanical advantage! And getting gear in there means clearing a lot of brush. Restoring the two markers would be a good two day effort for a small crew. Longer if there is a desire to really clear and improve the area.

Getting to the site was a little dicey. We had to park on the roadside in front of a lot behind which are several houses. A thick wall of Poison Ivy forced us to look for entre several yards down the road then make our way back through the thickets to the graves. 

After the visit, as we were heading back to the car, one of the residents of the nearby houses was leaving. Obviously our presence was noted and we were eyed with more than a little suspicion. "Who the hell are these people and what are they doing creeping around my property?"

We explained that we were finding the cemetery over in the woods.

"What cemetery?"

We further explained there are two graves just across from where our car was parked. To say this guy was surprised is to understate in the extreme. He had, according to him, lived there for years and had no idea there were graves there. We had to show him photos and point to the location to convince him.

The real joy was watching the evolving look of 'freaked out' on his face. It was clear that the idea of graves that close to his house was unnerving. I think the fact that Halloween is approaching amplified the effect.

I really should not enjoy this kind of evil pleasure. 

But I do. As General George S. Patton, Jr. said about himself and war, "I love it. God held me, I do love it so."