"Oh, Fudge!" - Ralph "Ralphie" Parker

Anyone who has any memory of the film "A Christmas Story" will doubtless recall little Ralphie's lapse in judgement while 'helping' his father change a flat tire on the way home with the family's Christmas Tree. Remember the moment when the hubcap filled with lug nuts that Ralphie was holding for his father was bumped and the nuts went flying, silhouetted for the briefest of moments by the headlights of passing traffic.

"Oh, Fudge!"

Only he didn't say 'Fudge'. And neither did I.

Ok, so some explanation is warranted. 

But first, some exposition to set up the explanation!

Anyone who has stomped and tromped around a cemetery or fifty starts learning patterns. Not so much in burials, but in the cemeteries and graveyards themselves. Locations, styles of markers, etc. become more and more apparent over time and with more experience.

Now those patterns are highly dependent on what area of the country one is in. In the South and more rural locations in the heartland the pattern is for more family cemeteries and church graveyards and less city or community cemeteries until more into the mid to late 20th century. This means a plethora of little cemeteries all over the place, often in places that today seem bizarre. Like say industrial parks.

Family farms get sold off and the family dies off or moves away. The church moves or folds. Either way the graves are all but abandoned. I daresay this is hardly a great revelation to anyone reading this silliness.

Enough with the exposition and on with the explanation.

Not too far from Br'er's warren, in the midst of an industrial development, hidden beneath a canopy of trees and well shielded by bushes rests a cemetery. Or graveyard. There remains some debate on that point. It was definitely used for church burials at some point, but it also seems to have graves predating the church. So was it a family cemetery that became a church graveyard? The world may never know!

Br'er and Mrs Br'er had visited this cemetery before. You can follow that link for all those details. No need to rehash them here. 

The reason we were back is to scratch a mental itch I had been experiencing for some time. You see, there are several broken headstones there. Some retain a little of the inscriptions, others have only a base that once held a marker. Often these fragments and markers are simply laying flat and have become covered with the detritus and duff (Yes, those are real words and properly used in context here - I love when I can flex my vocabulary!). Ever since Br'er Poppa gifted me with a ground probe I have looked for opportunities to use it.

This is a perfect opportunity. 

So it was that we had stopped by this location recently after having done some headstone cleaning for Mrs. Br'er's ancestors and relatives elsewhere. I wanted to make a quick check to see if the probe could detect anything in the area immediately around the broken and missing stones.

There are two small bases side by side that are both missing the headstone itself. These are almost certainly children's graves given the size. And there is nothing about their names or dates recorded anywhere associated with the headstones. If I could find the buried bits and fix names to the graves, it would be a big-ish thing.

When you use a probe like this you are going to get a few different results.

Firstly, either you hit solid ground (the probe will only sink a couple of inches or so) or it will relatively easily sink deep into the ground. The later indicates earth that has been disturbed several feet down meaning a probable grave. (More on this later!)

Secondly, if the probe sinks any depth at all, either you hit something or you don't. If you make some kind of contact it is critical that you pay very close attention to what you hear and feel through the probe. A dull 'thud' is most likely a root or buried piece of wood, and is of little or no interest. Those feel soft in comparison to other contacts. Stone or metal, on the other hand, make a high pitched 'tink' and are far more dense. These are of much interest.

On out little stop in to test with the probe I hit clear and obvious stone about two inches down and immediately in front of the headstone base! Woot! I removed some dirt. Just enough to confirm stone. 

Well this afternoon we returned again. This time with all the necessary tools to correctly (i.e. without damage) excavate whatever was buried there. Could it be the missing headstone? Might I have found names and dates that everyone had missed in all the previous years?

Mosquitos be damned! This is important and inquiring minds want to know!

If you haven't gotten there yet based on the title, it was just a fecking rock. Granted it was of a size and shape that could well have been a fieldstone marker for a neighboring grave. But there was not the slightest hint of any carving on it.

Fudge!

Or as Charlie Brown might say, "I got a rock."

I returned the rock to its original spot and orientation. The only change left was the disturbed dirt and roots. The rocks on the marker base came from the excavation. I set them aside and examined them closely in case they were broken fragments that could be pieced back together. Alas! They were but rocks. No evidence whatsoever of having been worked by human hands.

I spoke earlier about the ground probe. It is about 48 inches (four feet) long in total. Here it is in a sunken area in front of a field stone marker - a probable grave. It is only in an inch or so. Just enough to keep it standing by itself while I take the photo.

Here is the probe inserted with minimal effort meeting virtually no resistance.

Yeah. I feel pretty safe saying this is a grave. Had the ground not been disturbed so deeply then the probe would have been virtually impossible to sink that deep. You do need to check the surrounding area - preferably using a fixed grid - to determine the full extent of the disturbed ground. This will help you confirm that what you have hit is not, say a rotted tree stump, and is the size and shape of a grave (adult or child).

Not my mental itch is scratched if not satisfied. There are no missing fragments waiting to be unearthed.

Dammit!

One is the loneliest number

"One is the loneliest number that can ever be.

Two can be as bad as one. It's the loneliest number since the number one." - Three Dog Night

Poppa Br'er has gotten the bug. Well, at least it is flaring up if it is a pre-existing condition. Much of the territory that I roam finding and visiting old cemeteries is his old stomping ground. So he has been taking more than a little delight roving hither and yon spotting cemeteries and reminiscing about his younger and wilder days.

He and Mamma Br'er were recounting having passed a few small cemeteries recently. He gave me kinda-sorta directions to the locations. I use Find A Grave's map function to scan the locations and see if they are already recorded. Then I make a plan to either go find them myself or have him show them to me on one of the outings (he makes regular trips for family reasons and rather enjoys being chauffeured around these days. It allows him to look around without being in danger of crashing the car.

I fired up my search engines and started looking for these places.

One shows on the map that I don't think I will ever be able to access. At least not without violating a number of laws. And looking at the location, I don't think I want to take on another hike into the woods.

One can only imagine the story that lies untold there.

A single headstone shared by two brothers who each died as infants. Neither reached a year old and they were not alive at the same time.

Bennie Bray lived a scant seven months: 12 Nov 1888 to 14 Jun 1889.

Ira Bray survived a little longer making the eight month mark: 14 Jun 1890 to 4 Mar 1891

These are the only two burials recorded at the site. The description states there may be a third, unmarked grave. If there is, it is almost certainly another member of the same family.

Their parents rest some 15 miles away in a church graveyard having outlived these two sons (there are at least nine more children) by some 30 to 40 years.

I would have to research land records to confirm my theory, but what I envision is that the land where these two boys are buried was the family farm at the time. At some point in the ensuing 10-15 years the family relocated further north, closer to the church where the parents and other family would ultimately be buried. And, I note that the boys' grandmother was already buried in as she passed away when Bennie was a mere three days old. (Side note: The grandfather appears to have died at some point between 1880 and 1900 as he appears on the 1880 census and not on the 1900 when he would have been about 85 years old. I can speculate that he is in the same cemetery as his wife, but is not marked or not recorded there in Find A Grave)

Since the boys share a headstone and Ira was not yet born when Bennie died, it is clear that Bennie probably lay in an unmarked grave for almost two years. That it was only after Ira died that there was a marker placed. 

Was this a matter of finances? Were there insufficient funds for two stones? Was it that there didn't seem to be a good enough reason to mark a single grave and it was only when the second child died did the parents see sufficient cause to place a marker?

And you have to wonder when the family last visited the graves. 

So. Two totally switch genres from Rock Music lyrics to J.R.R. Tolkien parody;

In two graves in the wood lay to infants. Not ornate, maintained, visited graves, but lonely, forgotten, untended graves. And that is sad.

You Got To Know When To Fold'em

 I have a love/hate relationship with mysteries. I love them when I first encounter them. Doubly so when I solve them. But hand me one that I cannot solve and I absolutely loathe it.

I have one I hate right now.

I encountered a child's grave on one of our excursions cleaning headstones. We were in a waiting period while the D/2 was working on the stones we were cleaning and I was drawn to an obvious child's grave nearby, obvious by the small (now headless) lamb atop the marker.

The marker itself was so black and grimy that it absolutely looked as though it were made from anthracite coal. Nothing of the engraving could be made out except by side-lighting. Moss and lichens combined with algae to make an already sad item absolutely wretched.

I was compelled to see what I could do to improve its condition.

First came re-centering it on its base. Most people are unaware that many, if not most, monuments rely on sheer mass and proper placement to keep everything in place. In this case the upper part had been shifted slightly off center. That was easily remedied.

Next up was the scraping. The lichen and moss, for the most part, gave way with minor scraping with a plastic putty knife. The flat and easily accessed nooks popped right off. Those in the deeper recesses were another matter. And the algae held fast like limpets on tidal rocks.

We gave it a good soaking with the D/2 and waited the obligatory period before attacking it with the scrub brush.

Few things are as satisfying as watching dirt, grime, and mildew die an horrible death. A few minutes of scrubbing (and more than a little sweating in the humidity) and bits of white started peaking through the nasty stuff. Damned if it doesn't look like this monument is actually white marble! A through rinse and a second scrub and rinse left things greatly improved but with a long way to go before success could be declared. Time to leave the D/2 to do its magic.

I have it on the list to revisit around Christmas to check.

But my weakness is and remains the stories behind the graves. Naturally this meant research. First, pulling up the memorial in Find A Grave to see it there is family linked. There is not. But there is a transcription of the death notice. That gives me a father's (Mr. and Mrs.) and a sister's name to work from. And it appears that this little girl fell victim to something I have heard about my entire life, but never before encountered anyone who experienced it. Let alone died of it: Ptomaine. Basically food poisoning. Having had food poisoning myself, I can imagine - to an extent - how horrible that had to be for her.

I can only hear Alan Sherman's voice singing "Hello, Mudda. Hello, Fadda. Here I am at, Camp Granada."

Off to Ancestry!

And therein lies the mystery. As the little girl was born in 1902 and died in 1914, she only appears on one Census. Thankfully it isn't the notoriously missing 1890 version!

She appears in the household of an aunt  as a niece along with the sister mentioned in the funeral notice. There is no father, but there is a woman of the right age listed immediately before her and her sister who is noted as a sister to woman - the aunt - that is listed as the head of the household. 

Interestingly, both women are listed as widows. 

So I have what appears to be the mother's first name. No maiden name, though.

I start building the tree including the sister and mother. It certainly isn't much to work from!

With so little detail on the mother and father, I focus for a moment on the sister. Lots of good detail on her. Most interesting is her death certificate as it gives their father and mother. And the mother's maiden name! 

Unsurprisingly the father's middle initial is not the same on the death certificate and in the funeral notice. No real shock there. 

But having the mother's maiden name makes the search a tad bit more productive. Right off the bat I find the parent's marriage license. Naturally this, too, contradicts with the Census. In 1910 the mother shows being in her current marriage 6 years (and having born 2 children with both living). Married six years but the older child, the one who started me on this inane quest, is age 7. Grrr. Moreover the license dates from 1896 meaning that in 1910 the marriage would have been 14, not 6 years.

I cannot find the mother in the 1900 Census at all, under either her maiden or married name. She remarried before 1920 and that second marriage really confuses the search engine.

She does have a memorial in Find A Grave, and it is in the same cemetery as the child. Great. Now I have to go and try finding it. I have to know if it is near the child or not.

Arrghhh!!! Why do I do this to myself?

I can find precious little on the father. I think I have him in the 1880 census as a 10 year old living in the same county as the marriage occurred, so it is plausible that this is the right person. The 1890 census is, alas, missing. And I cannot place him on the 1900 census with any degreee of confidence.

I do see him and the mother listed in the city directory in 1906, so can narrow down his death to be 1906 or later. 

No death, no burial for him.

So. Neither parent is listed in the 1900 Census. And their marriage year is in doubt. And the father cannot be found after 1906. Just fecking great.

Taking a side track for a moment. I also traced the aunt (sister to the mother) based on the now infamous 1910 Census entry. It states she is a widow. BUT! She married in 1887 and her husband did not die until 1926!

Somebody telling some lies!

I find the aunt and her husband in the 1900 Census. And in the 1920 Census. But I also find the aunt as a widow in the 1920 Census.

Obviously I have the wrong husband! SO! I get to delete all that work and rethink things........ This is the only candidate I could find. And he is wrong.

That's it. I am, as veterans might put it, popping smoke on this one. I  found the mother and submitted a change to link her to the child. That is the best I can do with the dearth of data. 

These mysteries broke me.

Touchstone Cemetery

Ol' Br'er has visited many a grave in out of the way places. Many's the time he has pushed through the briars to find a long abandoned and nearly forgotten cemetery. So you would think he has seen just about everything.

You would be mistaken were you to think so.

Touchstone Cemetery was a new experience. Not totally new, mind you, but definitely different.

Now, Br'er was introduced to bizarre graves back in his baby bunny years. Mamma Rabbit used to shop at a now defunct mall. In the mall parking lot stood (and still stands) a large stone edifice that looks much like a pyramid with the top third neatly sliced off. Naturally he had to investigate. Slipping under the gate and up the stairs he found several graves. Apparently the surrounding land was once a family farm and this was the burial site for the family. Whether the structure was build by the family at the time, or whether it was later build to enclose and protect the graves when the mall was built is not clear. If the later, then the surrounding ground was excavated a good 12 feet or more leaving the graves elevated at the original ground level.

I will leave it to Atlas Obscura to give photos and descriptions for this site, the Crowley Mausoleum. But I have to be pedantic and note that this is clearly NOT a mausoleum as the photos will attest.

The point being that graves in a parking lot is not a new thing to Ol' Br'er.

But a cemetery in a gas station/convenience store parking lot, across from the pumps and next to the dumpster? Yeah. That is a new one.

Like the Crowley graves, the surrounding area has clearly been lowered, though only by about three feet. Getting into the cemetery is not easy. At least not old we old, fat folk.

The cemetery is the green trapezoid on the upper left of the image. And access is via the 'green' swath running from the lower left corner of the cemetery along the parking spaces to the road. This path starts at current ground level and gradually raises to the level of the cemetery. Assuming you can avoid the trash strewn about.

I was stunned to find that the grave of Lola Cantrell and Infant Son had never been added to Find A Grave.

I was even more stunned to find a marker dating from 1998! A full century plus three years since the last burial. Try as I might, I have not been able to connect this last burial with the Touchstone family at all. Indeed, I can find little on the individual at all. Though I am willing to speculate that it was a cremains burial rather than a full body interment. I have encountered this before where there is a century or more between burials in a cemetery. Those were all cremains. Frankly, given the cemetery locations involved, getting a casket to the site would have proven quite an ordeal. Just getting the headstone in place had to be no small undertaking.

So. Was Michael Battle a relative? A descendant? Or was this someone taking advantage of the circumstances of an open spot in a cemetery no one pays any attention to?

Care to write a story of a crime being hidden in plain site?