Cemetery Serendipity

Or maybe the beginning of all Redneck Fairy Tales; Now y’all ain’t gonna believe this shi______!

Not a long tale today, but a true one. Ok, all my stories are true. I may need to embellish a part or two, or fudge some of the details to protect the guilty from time to time, though.

This time neither is required making for a singular moment.

I related some time back about my adventures in locating a Cooper Cemetery wherein lies a distant relative (1st cousin 5x removed to be precise). Feel free to check that post to get up to speed for this one. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Literally. It isn’t as if these posts are done in real time.

Back already? My but that was fast. Anyhoo…

I had shared with Pappa Br’er about having found the cemetery since he was part of the original effort to locate it. He and I were back in the vicinity and since the weather was fecking GORGEOUS, I took him over to see it. He found it rather interesting and offered that we may come back and clean out the over growth. The markers are in good condition but, alas, saplings, vines, briars and the like are taking over. It really would not take a full day’s effort to cut them all back and make the site rather nice for a time.

Well, in the search process one story was related to me - told for true as it were - about how a local gentleman had been paid for years by a family descendant to keep the cemetery cleaned and in good order. And how, after that descendant passed away, the money dried up and cemetery maintenance ceased. Alas, the individual relating the tale could not remember any specific people involved. So it was just something he remembered being told but could not confirm.

Keep this in mind. I will return to it shortly.

After Br’er Pappa and I stomped around the (literal) briars for a bit we started making our way back out to the vehicle. Our noise and conversation attracted the attention of an older gentleman who was unloading materials out of his truck nearby. Obviously we were not local residents so we could understand his interest in who these two strangers coming out of the woods were and what they were up to. See the local residents are of a totally different ethnic background than we are. To say we ‘stood out’ is to grossly understate the situation.

So we diverted over to speak with him and allay any concerns he might have about our being up to something nefarious. Not that we are not more than capable of being up to something less than good; We can and often do get into and up to things we ought not.

But this time - for the moment - we were not.

We explained that we were searching for a dead man.

Ok. I said we are not above getting into some mischief. Making this stranger think we were searching for someone in the recently deceased category was too good an opportunity to pass up. 

After a moment or three to allow him to imagine all sorts of evil possibilities we went on to explain how one of the people in the cemetery a few yards away is a distant kin to us. We also made specific mention how we are only related to one of the 17 people recorded buried there. Ok, two people if you want to really stretch the concept of related to include our cousin’s father-in-law who is also buried there. 

I have tried desperately to link these two to the family whose cemetery this is. But despite all my efforts I can find no trace of the families having and relationship whatsoever! How they came to be laid to rest in this family’s cemetery will just have to remain on of those mysteries lost to history.

It was only a few minutes later that I had the rare experience of having a story confirmed. And by someone directly involved! You see, without our mentioning it or prompting him about the subject, this old gentleman launched into the following:

"There was an old man from that family who used to pay me to keep up that cemetery. But he died about 15 years or so back. And his widow made it clear that she had no intention at all to keep paying ‘too much’ money to keep it up. So the money stopped so I stopped."

He was clearly angling to see if we would offer up the notion of our paying him to start cleaning it again. Little did he know what a cheap SOB (Son of Br’er if you need a safe for the pastor version of what that means) I am!

Don't Have a Cow, Man!

There is usually a difference between Persistence, Tenacity, and Idiocy. In my case they are virtually the same thing. If the three were plotted on a Venn Diagram you would need extreme magnification to be able to discern the different circles.

A year or so back Mrs. Br'er and I set out to find the family cemetery of a distant cousin of mine. When you are talking about someone born close to two centuries ago who lived in the frontier, you know you have a task in front of you.

This cemetery had been recorded years before by the county historical society and included in their published in their compilation book of cemeteries in the county. Cool. And all the graves - a staggering number of 10! - are recorded in Find A Grave. But there are no photos of the headstones and cemetery.

This vexes me. I want the photographs. Not only because of my anal-retentive nature, but because too many old cemeteries end up destroyed with nothing but the notes remaining. I want the photos recorded and the specific grave GPS recorded as well.

Well, when we first rolled up on the general location I immediately began questioning my life choices. 

I have been to a lot of homes that were closer visually to a junk yard than a house. And a few that looked abandoned. If you have read some of the earlier entries to this blog then you may recall the "opium den chic" trailer we encountered in Alabama. Well, this place was arguably worse than that based on sheer mass and total acreage. Additional buildings, junk, etc. festooned the property. Hell, I would not have been at all surprised had Walter White confronted me with a shotgun to protect his meth lab out back. 

GPS coordinates for the cemetery appeared to place it smack-dab in the back yard of this property. At least as best we could determine based on satellite maps and the GPS on our phones. As we had better prospects and more attractive places to be (i.e. anywhere else), we abandoned the effort.

Well months - and lots of research - later I decided to give it all a second shot. A good portion of the research entailed better expansion of how those interred there tie in to the family tree and to each other. Not all of this was evident based solely on the Find A Grave entries. 

The kicker was digging into the county property tax records. The county has the cemetery recorded as its own registered plot! AND! Those records show the property lines. Turns out the cemetery is not on the same property as Trailer Trash Central. It sits about 200 yards back off the road surrounded by a multi-acre plot the majority of which is some kind of pastureland. The area around the cemetery is wooded. But! The cemetery almost abuts the tree line running along the open pasture. Now in this area the majority of these open fields are used to grow hay or fodder. So it should be a fairly simple matter to stroll along the pasture edge, hop the fence, and access the cemetery.

Famous last words; "Should be easy."

We pull up to the gate entering the pasture and the first mental alarm goes off. Rather than a basic fence gate we see instead the wires for an electric fence. Now if you are not familiar with the difference then I should elaborate a bit.

Normally pasture access would have either a wooden gate (old school) or a welded tubular steel gate (more modern). Seldom do these have locks on them as locks are a pain to the farmer. Usually there will be a chain wrapping around the fence post and the gate with a hook of some kind through the chain. Think of this as an 'integrity lock'. It only keeps out honest people. These gates will hold up to most livestock. But if a larger animal such as a cow or bull decides to test it then the whole contraption will eventually fail.

An electric fence is, on the other hand - far less physically intimidating. These are just thin bare metal wire running along the fence line a few feet off the ground. In some cases, and this was one of those, it was a two wire fence. One wire about a foot and a half off the ground and another about three and a half or four feet off the ground. An electric fence gate is a much simpler device. There is no frame nor a hinge. Instead the wire ends in a plastic handle (necessary protection) with a metal hook. The hook connects to a hole in the opposite wire. Once in place it completes the electric circuit allowing current to flow through the entire fence. You simply unhook the wire to 'open' the gate.

Unless you are too lazy, old, or fat to duck under the wire you need to unhook the gate to pass the electric fence (barring other additional fencing the electric fence supports).

I have enough experience with these fences to know how they work. Specifically that one does not want to touch that damned wire. Anything unpleasant enough to keep horses and cattle at bay is not something you want to experience. It will not damage you unless you have a cardiac issue like a pacemaker. And perhaps not even then. But it hurts like a bitch nonetheless!

So I tell Mrs. Br'er to stay with the car while I push on. I opt to take gloves, and pruners with me. This will prove to be a wise choice. 

I follow the fence until I am about where the cemetery should be visible. Looking into the woods I notice there is a get to the electric fence leading from the pasture to the woods. Standing at that gate and looking out I can see an iron fence a few yards in that must certainly be the cemetery I am looking for. Unfortunately the gate is blocked by overgrown brush. Fortunately I brought pruners with me! A few snips and I can unhook the gate.

Yup. This is the place. And all things considered it is in stellar shape. Though I have to make further use of the pruners to clear away a few limbs and vines to access and photograph the headstones. Cell signals are not all that great at the location. Still, with some patience and effort I manage to get good photos of everything and GPS tag each individual grave in Find A Grave. With only 10 graves all this doesn't take too long.

As I am sweating and fighting the mosquitos Mrs. Br'er keeps me updated via text with the goings on back at the main gate. It seems there are cattle milling about. And a bull.

Lovely. 

As a general rule I have no problem with livestock, even large livestock. They generally don't want to be around people and make themselves scarce, or they are used to people so no worries. The exception to the rule are beef cattle. Especially Angus beef cattle. This will become important in a moment.

I make my way back through the back gate and into the pasture. Bear in mind at this point that there are, to the best of my knowledge, only two gates to the pasture. The main gate where I am headed and the back gate I just left. I make it about 50 yards before I spot the cattle. About a dozen or so bovines are milling around the front gate. And one of them is HUGE. I mean all cattle are large, but this one is larger than the rest. And it looks to be a Black Angus.

Crud!

I go a few yards closer to see if the cattle will move off. Usually pasture raised beef cattle will not hang around if someone approaches them. So maybe they will depart if I approach.

Nope. Damned cows are just eyeballing me. Not moving a foot. And I can now see at least three calves. The calves look to be only a week or so old. Lovely. Not only do I have to deal with cows, I have to deal with cows protecting their calves. 

Oh. Did I mention that I don't exactly have permission to be on this property? Honestly, this is seldom an issue. Most people are not at all concerned if someone crosses their land to visit a cemetery so long as they don't cause any damage. 

Messing with cattle would pretty much be the definition of  'damage'.

I start giving real consideration to firing a couple of rounds into the ground (better than the air or distance as there is no chance of accidentally hitting something you don't mean to). But wisdom kicks in and I abandon that thought. 

This gives me two alternatives. I can either retreat to the wood (back where the cemetery is) and make my way out through Meth Lab Central or I can try making my way out through the briars and brambles on the outside of the electric fence.

Well, as has been said before, Ol' Br'er was born and bred in the Briar Patch. So that is my new exit route. Besides, there is no way in hell I am approaching those sketchy trailers and buildings. That looks like a place where they would shoot first then ask who was there.

Obviously this is not going to be a fast exit. Between the necessity of careful steps to avoid tripping over a log, getting tangled up in briars, and avoiding the massive spider webs every few feet, forward progress is painfully slow.

Oh. Did I not mention the spiders? The massive (2-3 inch span) yellow and black spiders that have woven thick webs between virtually every tree and twig in the whole damned place? Yeah. Those. If you recall reading about the spiders Bilbo faced in Mirkwood then you can easily imagine these being the not too distant descendants of those spiders. I SO needed Sting this day.

Not being a complete fool, I take up a stick in one hand and the long handled pruners in the other. The stick serves well to beat back the spider webs. and the fiberglass handled pruners make a great tool to keep the electric fence at bay.

When I am a few yards from exiting the brush I pass very close to the cattle. Considering that the only thing keeping the cows from me is the electric fence. A couple of wires. And I have seen these fences fail. If these things decide to charge me I have nowhere to retreat to. Indeed, I cannot move anywhere quickly no matter how urgently I may need to do so.

Remember that big Black Angus that I saw? Yeah. Standing about 8 feet away from me and giving me the Evil Eye. Turns out that particular animal is a female, though she has the smallest, most underdeveloped udder I have ever seen on a cow. Come to think of it, this may be a heifer, not a cow. The difference being that a heifer is a female bovine that has never had a calf whereas a cow is a female that HAS calved.

Whether heifer or cow, this critter looks to weigh a good 1,600 pounds at least. And she is all muscle. I am not counting on the jolt of an electric fence to stop her if she decides to come at me. So I put my hand on my pistol, just in case. This meant moving the pruners aside.

Big mistake. Huge.

You know how cloth is not a good electrical conductor? Yeah. Well sweat soaked cloth is an EXCELLENT conductor.

Good thing I had not pulled my pistol and have excellent trigger discipline. Otherwise I have no doubt that I would have discharged the damned thing. The jolt an electric fence give you could easily cause you to twitch a finger and end up pulling the trigger whether you meant to or not.

I swear those damned cows were laughing.

Fortunately at this point they decided to stop staring at me and wander off a few yards. And it was at this point that the briars stopped and the Pole Salad (Milkweed for you city folk) started. That made my going much, much easier. A last push and I was back to the car. And that jug of ice water I had stored in the trunk.

But! Mission accomplished! All graves photographed and GPS tagged.

You will forgive me if I don't make a return visit any time soon.

"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? 

We Return Now to Regular Programming

Yeah. It's been a while. Not that there has been nothing to share, just that I've either been too distracted to too damned lazy to write it up. So I will atone, a little, for those sins now.

First off - and in no particular order - is Whaley Cemetery. This is a small family cemetery TW and I checked out last fall or somewhere there-abouts. At the time there were only some 5 recorded graves and only about 3 headstones visible. The small fenced lot was completely overgrown in briars and vines making it almost impossible to traverse the space. Even so I managed to find at least one unrecorded headstone for a child, a girl, and updated the database accordingly. I also updated the cemetery description in Find A Grave.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago and someone from the county historical society contacts me asking if I have more details on the cemetery and if I have any relatives in it. An Eagle Scout had cleaned up the cemetery for his project and the society was looking for more data on those buried there.

Naturally this required a revisit. That it was rainy, hot, and muggy mattered not a whit.

But before setting out, I revisited my search efforts on the names of those buried there. Especially the child. I have a thing about identifying the children and matching them up with family.

Well last efforts produced little data. But the gods were smiling on my efforts this time. I started finding more information including a 1934 survey of the cemetery by Franklin Garrett. That yielded several additional graves with markers that were not in Find A Grave. Is there any cemetery in the Atlanta area that Franklin did not visit and document? That man was a research BEAST!

This time I took my tools and ground probe. Systematic searching and probing found all the missing headstones save one! They were under several inches of accumulated soil and debris. I unearthed and photographed them, updated Find A Grave, and shared what I found with the historical society. I also linked several children, apparent siblings, with parents. Though I did note of a couple that my efforts were supposition based on names, dates, and the graves being set together. Logical conclusions based on the data, but not conclusive proof.

Now that is an experience few people will be able to claim. Probing the ground in a cemetery, locating missing headstones, and digging them up. 

I need to go back in better conditions and see if I can find that last missing marker!

Second, TW and I made an initial attempt to clean a Revolutionary War veteran's headstone. The old boy was buried on his land under a False Tomb and later (in the 20th century) marked with a VA issued stone. Unfortunately the gravesite is under a large oak tree in a damp environment. Algae and mildew have severely stained the stone making it all but unreadable. There are clear signs that others are buried nearby, but only field stones and sunken spots remain to show where the graves are. Who they are is lost to history.

Our attempts with D/2 did give impressive results, but as with prior cases it will take weeks and months for the real effects to manifest. We have it on the list to revisit later in the fall.

Third, someone had requested grave photos from a small cemetery, Brown Gresham Cemetery. near Herndon Cemetery where some of my first D/2 efforts lie. This made a great excuse to go check those results. 

I managed to find Brown Gresham back in the woods (why are all these places back in the woods?) and was able to provide all the requested grave photos save one. Could not locate it. But in doing so I learned that fewer than half the graves there were recorded in Find A Grave! Lots of sweat, cursing, and mosquito bites later I had everything I could discern added to the database.

As a side note, I am both fascinated and saddened by how quickly these cemeteries are overgrown and forgotten. The last burial there was 1950 yet it is all but totally lost today.

Then again, 71 years ago is not exactly 'just yesterday'.

Damn! I am OLD!

Third, well, this is a cemetery/genealogy mashup and requires some history to set things up.

TW's father transferred power of attorney to her for a family plot in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta some years back. For those not familiar with Oakland, it was initially founded in the mid 1800s and expanded several times. Being a Victorian Era cemetery, it has more than a few ornate monuments and mausoleums. And various people of note including Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell and golfing legend Bobby Jones.

TW's Great-Great-Grandfather purchased the lot in 1877 (remember that date - it will be important later) and the last burial was in 1963 when her Great-Grandmother (TW's father's mother) passed away. Her Grandmother had donned the mantel as her mother aged and grew ill, and her father, being an only child, was assigned the role when he own mother aged and grew ill. 

Well, as you might expect, this role came with a smattering of semi-random scraps and pages of paper giving various bits of history on the plot and those buried there.

There were three burials (two unmarked) where the relationship to the family was not obvious. Two of these James and Lillian (a child of only about a year in age) Hollis were rather easily linked. James had married Cora Ellen, daughter of the plot owner (W C McDade and his wife Lucy, TW's GGPs). They had daughter Lillian who died so tragically young. James passed just over a decade later. Cora Ellen lived another six plus decades, remarried, and is interred in Florida.

Easy, peasy.

Then there was Frankie. Frankie McDade.

Part of the documentation TW had was a map of the plot giving each burial, name, dates, etc. Well, mostly. Not every burial was equally documented. This page is a duplicate of what is on file with the Sexton at Oakland Cemetery. And that is all there is at the cemetery for the plot.

Problem is, there are no dates. Nor is there anything showing how Frankie is related to the family. Just an age. One year.

Now I will not detail everything I checked in my efforts to locate Frankie's details. Just know that I was pretty damned exhaustive. No Census record, no Birth or Death Certificate, nothing. I searched old newspapers on-line (no, I did not read decades of papers page by page, only on-line searches, again important info for later). I even went so far as to physically check every surviving burial permit for the cemetery at the area history center. 

There is a separate data element from the cemetery - a list of burials, one entry listing Frank A McDade, born about 1870 and buried 27 July 1875. But it gives no data as to where in the cemetery this burial took place.

The only person living who might have an idea who Frankie was is TW's father. And while his memories are vivid and expansive, he had no knowledge of Frankie.

I had resigned myself to the fact that Frankie would be one of those brink wall mysteries all genealogy researchers eventually hit.

Fast forward several years. TW is sorting though all her inherited papers and photographs. I am scanning them for electronic storage and sharing with the extended family and she is organizing them and identifying the individuals in photos. All this before the knowledge is lost to history.

One of the bits of ephemera is a kinda-sorta family tree series of pages. Well, not a Tree so such as Spaghetti. It was painful to read. And I am never trusting of random bits of undocumented history. Peoples' memories are .... fallible and hazy. And often totally wrong. So I had not really read any of the material during the scanning process.

TW, however, did read it. And swore she recognized the handwriting as her grandmother's. We started comparing it to what I had documented from other sources.

The first thing we found was that I had a Daughter-In-Law and several Grandchildren of W C and Lucy McDade on the tree as their children instead. In my defense this is because that is how they are enumerated on the 1900 Census! These not being direct ancestors for TW, I had not spend any time on them so did not catch the error. 

This finding gave good validation that the documents were fairly accurate.

Working further who should we find? Yup. Frankie! Frankie is listed as a child of W C and Lucy McDade. That would certainly explain his burial in their plot. But is this the only documentation? 

One of TW's distant cousins had also researched the family and had shared her data. So I checked to see if she had anything on Frankie. She did. And it included a newspaper clipping (not fully attributed) of a funeral announcement for Frankie which lists his parents as Mr and Mrs W C McDade. When was this published? 27 July 1875.

Son of a ....... We done found Frankie! The cousin has him born in 1873 while the burial record has his birth about 1870, yet the burial map has his age as 1. Go figure. Whether he was 1, 2, or 5 years old, he was a child with all the tragedy that any such death entails.

But wait a second. The pieces do not exactly fit. We have a problem. Or at least a question.

Frankie died in 1875. The family plot was not purchased until 1977. Where the hell was he for those two years?!

Dammit!

All is not despair, though. At least not year. There is a possible explanation. It makes a good story, anyway. And I have to go to the cemetery to research to see if it meets with any documented facts.

To explain - 

WC McDade's mother, Rebecca, is also buried in the same cemetery, but in another plot with one of her daughter's family. Also, someone has recorded an infant McDade buried in that same plot but without any dates. Now, this plot is in an older cemetery section than where W C McDade's plot lies. So it is entirely possible that Frankie was initially interred in his sister's plot then exhumed and re-interred in his plot later. I have to see if the dates support this theory and if, just maybe, there are any records for the sister's plot about an exhumation.

Can you imagine if I end up proving my theory? Finding proof of a child's burial, exhumation, and reburial almost a century and a half after the fact?

To answer you burning question, Yes. I do have better things to do with my time. But such as the wages of poor life choices.