Rehoboth Redux and Another Mystery

Nigh on two years ago, I stumbled across a cemetery and ended up spending two full days on-site with it. Plus hours and hours doing research back in the warren. Read that story here.

The important thing to know is that I photographed all the headstones. Many had never been photographed before. Or, if they had been, the image was less than good.

Fast-forward to last week. Someone sent me a gracious Thank-You for the photo of someone in her family tree. That triggered my looking back at that family in the cemetery. One thought led to another, and the next thing I know, I am back in full-fledged research mode.

The family name, and one individual's name, in particular, kept tickling the back of my thoughts. I was just so familiar. Sure enough, it appeared in my tree as what I call a "marredinta." That is, someone who married into the family. In this case, a distant cousin. But, looking at the details, it could not be the same person. The date of birth was off by several decades.

Could they be related, though? Keep digging. I will spoil that part of the story by telling you upfront that there is no relationship that I can find. 

All that research took me down the proverbial rabbit hole. I was able to prove that two of the graves were of a father and infant son. That proof came from the father's will in which he explicitly named his wife, daughter, and infant son.

Sadly, that son only survived his father by a scant three months. At least I was able to link their memorials.

I could not let things drop there, so I kept on to see if I could also find the wife/mother and also link her memorial to the infant son.

She, it turned out, remarried about two years after becoming a widow. I found her listed in the 1900 census along with the daughter and mother-in-law of her first husband, her second husband, and another infant son who was just short of one year old. There could be no question that I had the right person. Indeed, the daughter was even listed as "Step-daughter." All of which brings us to the mystery I teased in the title.

With the 1900 Census, women were asked how many children they had born, and how many were living. You have to feel a pang when you see a woman listed as having born many childre, yet only a fraction of them were still alive. Or worse, none survived. I have seen a few cases where a woman had given birth to over a dozen children and, none survived. 

So, here I am, reading of one woman whom I know to have born three children, one of whom died four days before reaching his sixteenth month. And the other two are living in the same house as she. I read across the census columns to the children's counts.

1 born and 1 living.

How the hell did that get reported? I mean, I could understand if the memory of that first son was too painful to bring up. But with two children living in the house, how do you report just one?!

Add this to the long and growing list of questions I will never be able to answer.

The Tale of the Tumbling Tombstone

Ok. Upfront, I must confess a couple of things before I get started in earnest.

First, I hate using "Tumbling" in the title. It is misleading. I wanted to use "Wandering," but simply could not think of a word for a headstone or tombstone that started with a 'W', or even had a similar sounding first syllable as either name. I really wanted that lilting cadence in the title.

Second, I will not be divulging any names or locations this time. The details are sensitive. At least they could be. They should be. So I am erring on the side of caution. I think you will agree and appreciate this as you read further.

Once upon a time (Isn't that the most apropos intro to a Br'er Graveyard Rabbit spiel?), a young man died. He was mourned. He was buried, and his grave marked by a basic headstone. Under normal circumstances, that would be the end of the tale.

The circumstances were not to remain normal.

Separately, Br'er learned of a cemetery in a most unusual spot - a convenience/gas station parking lot. This odd juxtaposition was intriguing enough to warrant a visit. This had to be confirmed.

Sure enough, everything was as it seemed. Though, the details gleaned from seeing it in person were enlightening. First, the cemetery was old for the area, dating from the mid-19th century. It was obviously a family, and the story the stones told was as sad as expected. One grave held a young mother and her infant. The heartbreak of a husband and father, the tragedy of a broken family, and other facts were moving.

Additionally, the graves were almost under a raised mound. The surrounding area had been removed to level out the larger area when the site was developed from the farmland it must once have been. The result left the small area of the cemetery about four feet above current ground level. A retaining wall and fence had been added to protect the site.

With only a scant handful of graves recorded, I decided to audit the cemetery; to verify all the graves and update GPS. 

Then I see a much newer, unrecorded grave dating from the late 1990s - a century or more after the last burial. And the name does not appear to be related to any of the other graves. 

We have a right bizarre situation!

Now, understand that we are not describing some homemade, temporary, or tiny marker. This is a commercially produced granite headstone weighing several hundred pounds.  And it appears to have been deliberately set. Very strange.

Being unable to contain my imagination, I had to speculate how the marker came to be here. It seems most likely to me that this was a "guerilla" burial, probably for cremains. I've seen much the same thing in other places. Other tales for other times. I don't suppose I will ever know the truth.

I search for the memorial in Find A Grave and come up with nothing. So I add it as a new memorial and move on.

Fast-forward a few years and I get an email informing me that this person is not buried where I found the headstone, but in a municipal cemetery some 33 miles away, asking that I 'move' the memorial to the correct cemetery,

Ordinarily, I would not hesitate to apply any reasonable changes to a memorial requested of me. But this? No, I am going to have to demure since I personally saw the headstone in situ and created the Find A Grave memorial standing next to it. The person who had contacted me understood; and offered to recheck their facts and then contact me with more details.

Sweet! I had tried to find more details when I first found the grave but did not get anywhere.

A few days pass, and I have a new email updating me on the mystery marker. I doubt I could have dreamt up a story like this!

The person was, in fact, interred miles away in the municipal cemetery. The paper trail is solid. A person or persons unknown later decided to abscond with the headstone. For reasons beyond the comprehension of mere mortals, they dumped the headstone in the family cemetery where I found it.

That took dedication! Not that I would ever approve of vandalism, I can at least understand some lowlife toppling or moving a stone a few feet.

But thirty-plus miles? To place it in another cemetery? (Much less this cemetery.) That beggars the imagination!

As our little story unfolds, I learn that the deceased died committing armed robbery. And that he left a wife and four young children behind.

I have reassigned the Find A Grave memorial to the correct cemetery. And added the location details provided by the contact who originally brought the story to light.

As I write this, folks are coordinating efforts to return the headstone to the correct cemetery and place it at the correct gravesite. 

It is not often one hears of a wandering grave marker!