Let Me Ask Grandma

You know you are dealing with an almost forgotten cemetery when the individual trying to tell you about it needs to go back and check with Grandma for details.

And you know someone is in bad shape when they turn to ol' Br'er for help. Talk about going to a dry well.

I suppose some kind of explanation is warranted. If not, then I failed to pique your curiosity.

I was contacted by someone in the Social Media wasteland who was impressed by my ability to find cemetery data relatively quickly. I would not say my skills are that good, but, on the other hand, a few decades as an IT analyst may have paid off. 

Nah!

Anyhoo, the person recalled a cemetery from her childhood. Unfortunately, the area is under development, and she was concerned that it may be destroyed. 

Ok. A noble effort. 

The first thing was to see if the cemetery appears in FindAGrave. Short answer: It did not. At least where she thought it was located. But it has been decades since she was there. Her memory was fuzzy. Thus the statement, "Let me ask Grandma." 

I cast a wider search net to see if the cemetery might not be exactly where her memory placed it. I found one, 13 graves (actually 11 - there are two duplicates recorded) not too far away. It was not the one she was remembering. But as I soon learned, it has one of my 1st cousins 5x removed with her husband and some descendants. This I file away as somewhere to visit the next time I am in the area.

Once we had a more precise location, I rechecked and confirmed that it was not recorded. My contact also went to it and photographed the markers. That allowed us to search FindAGrave for their individual memorials.

Nada. 

What we have here is a missing, almost forgotten cemetery and a number of unrecorded graves.

Before taking any other steps, I built out a family tree to see if I could link the names on the headstones. Was this a family cemetery? Was it a church cemetery? (Ok, church graveyard for the pedants in the crowd.) 

I learned that there are two primary and two secondary families involved. Specifically, there are three Middlebrooks sisters buried there, two with their husbands and one child of one sister. The two husbands are Hollis and Montgomery. Additionally, there is an infant Montgomery. Lastly, there are two grandchildren.

I named the cemetery Hollis - Middlebrooks for the two primary families. Hollis came first because that was the first name I came across and because it is the name that appears the most on the headstones. Middlebrooks came second. In retrospect, I think this was a Middlebrooks family cemetery, and the husbands just ended up there. More on that later.

Until I had done all this research, I was considering just passing the information along and seeing if someone more local might be interested in picking up the torch. But now I was hooked. I had to see it through. 

Recall the second cemetery I noticed earlier on? The one with one of my distant cousins? While I cannot prove anything, it appears that her husband is a first cousin to the Hollis I am researching! 

Unfortunately, the location is almost an hour away from the warren. This is going to take the better part of the day. I make certain to take all my cemetery excursion tools with me, including my ground probe. 

Oh, yes. I am compelled to take up this one myself! I have too much invested at this point!

Once I arrive, I let my contact know I am there and starting on the research, and she joins me in a few minutes. 

The first thing we do is walk the perimeter to ensure it encompasses all the graves. There is one fieldstone that is not marked with a grave flag outside the line. I probe around it and the probe easily sinks several feet down. This is a good sign that the soil has been disturbed to that depth. Undisturbed soil - soil that has never been dug up - has much greater resistance. The probe seldom goes in more than a few inches. So we secretly move the flag a few feet out so that the probable grave falls within the overall cemetery perimeter.

After creating the cemetery record in FindAGrave, I begin adding each grave, linking families, adding more photographs, and setting GPS locations for each one.

Good thing I reserved substantial time for the effort!

B. M. Hollis was where I started my research and why I (almost certainly incorrectly) first named the cemetery Hollis. Would you believe his name was Bartley? Most likely Bartley Martin Hollis.

T.C. Hollis turned out to be Talithia C. (Middlebrooks) Hollis, 1st wife of Bartley (he married a few years after her death and fathered several more children with her). She was the first Middlebrooks I noticed but should not have been, as I will explain later. No clue as to what the 'C' stands for!

As best I can uncover, little Isaac S. Hollis was the only son of Bartley and Talithia. That had to be soul-crushing for them. 

Permelia, here, should have been the first Middlebrooks I noticed. But I was not paying close attention and missed the obvious appearance of her name on the headstone. She is a sister to Talithia.

Permethia's husband - Bluford Terrell Mongomery. So help me, his name was Bluford. It appears that way on many records with it clearly spelled out. No chance for mistaken handwriting!

I am confident in saying that I don't think I shall ever encounter a living Bluford!

Little Hale passed at a mere 9 months and 9 days old. He was a son to Marcus Judson Hollis and his wife, Laura Felix (Haile) Hollis. Seriously, all the records list her name as Felix. It may have been Felicia, but it was not recorded that way so far as I could find. Marcus and Felix are buried in the nearby Rutledge City Cemetery.

Marcus was a son of Bartley M Hollis through his second wife, Mary Ann (Gresham) Hollis, making Hale one of Bartley's grandchildren.

Speaking of grandchildren, Little Pearl Stanton is another of Bartley M and Talithia's through their daughter, Ollie Jane Hollis.

Ollie Jane married Isaac Anderson Stanton. There is a marker next to their graves in Circle View Cemetery in nearby Social Circle. It reads, "In memory of Little Pearl Stanton Age 1 year." That FindAGrave memorial gives her dates as Dec 1878 - 9 December 1879. 

I am convinced that the Circle View stone is a cenotaph, and Pearl's actual grave is here. Her parents passed away in the early 1930s (Isaac in 1931 and Ollie Jane in 1934) - more than 50 years after Pearl passed away. Circle View lists only about two dozen or so graves dating from 1879 or earlier, and the cemetery is several miles from where Isaac and Ollie lived at the time. It would make no sense for them to take an infant daughter that far for burial where there was an existing family cemetery much closer. Further, looking at the two stones, the one here is clearly of the right look for the period, whereas the Circle View stone looks much newer in style.

My theory is that they wanted something closer to their gravesites to remember their infant daughter lost a half-century earlier. 

Oh! The Circle View record mentions a Middlebrook Family Association. Put a pin in that for later!

The following two graves are less certain. I have to speculate on who they are based on what I could make out on the stones and what I could learn building the family tree.

First up was a child's grave. My ugly boot in the lower left-hand corner gives something for scale (I did not have a banana. Sorry. Internet joke there.). 

I could just make out what appeared to be a J or T and F Montgomery. Looking at the family tree, I found Talulah F Montgomery, born about 1863. She was a daughter of Bluford and Permelia and only appears in one record - the 1870 US Census, where her age is listed as 7. That page was enumerated on 1 June 1870, so the odds favor her being born between June 2 and December, 31 1862. That is a 7 month period vs. the alternative period of January 1 and June 1, 1863 - a 5 month period. The age recorded on the census is "as of last birthday," so she had to be born in one of those two periods (Ok. Was probably born in one of those two periods, assuming whoever answered the census did not screw up. Like that would ever happen.) 

Perhaps someone will clean the stones with D/2 one day, and more can be learned from the stone.

Second up was an adult's grave. The top slab was leaning next to the false tomb base.

There is clearly a lot on the stone, but all I could make out was the beginning, "Sacred to the memory of Martha Jane Roberts." But, again, D/2 might reveal more.

But I had Martha Jane in the tree already. She was born Martha Jane Middlebrooks in 1829, a sister to Talithia and Permelia. 

Martha Jane married Silas Robertson in 1851 and had at least (probably only) one child, a son William Franklin Robertson in 1854. She passed away before 24 Aug 1859, though the exact date remains a mystery. I know she passed away before 24 Aug 1859 because of her father's will. That is the date he signed it (he lived until 1861). In the will, he names William Franklin Robertson as a grandson receiving the share of the estate that would have gone to his deceased daughter, Martha Jane Robertson. 

 This will was that of Isaac S. Middlebrooks. He was the father of Martha Jane, Permelia, and Talithia. All the evidence now leads me to speculate that he and his wife, Olly (Phillips) Middlebrooks, are in two of the 20 unmarked graves here. That makes the most sense when you consider three sisters are buried here. If I had to bet, I would place my money there.

I mentioned earlier that I found that there is a Middlebrook Family Association. And it appears to be active. I have dropped a message to several listed association contacts sharing what I have found. No replies yet, but it has only been a few hours. 

Still, I cannot imagine they will be anything less than ecstatic at all the new data.

I can't believe how much time I have sunk into this. And I am not even related to them!

I'm Not Dead Yet or The Lost Weekend

Ok. So it has been a bit since I posted anything here. But in my defense, The Universe did make a valiant attempt to add me to a cemetery, though. The week of Thanksgiving, I came down with the Rona virus. I spent three weeks fending off a fever that spiked over 103 off and on the entire time. It wasn't until almost Christmas that I started to feel anything resembling normal.

Now that the New Year has started, here I am slapped right in the face with a case of a grave that piques my curiosity.

At the end of the 1890s, a company tried to start a community on the land where old Br'er's warren sits. Sadly, it failed and was almost totally vanished by 1930. There is virtually nothing remaining of it except part of the name of a few streets. I only learned about the failed community relatively recently. There is very little documentation of or even reference to it anywhere.

So you can imagine my shock where I saw the community name in an obituary last week! I think it is possibly the only reference to it in the major local paper the entire time it existed!

Naturally, I had to investigate!

As the man said, "Be careful what you start. It may be a dragon that ends up consuming you." I pulled the dragon's tail, and it woke up.

Meet Vesti. Or Vasti. It appears as each spelling on different documents. I suspect it was intended to be Vesta. That was a common enough name in the 19th century. And all things considered, if that is the case, it is a minor miracle that it came through spelled that close to the original.

Montreal Station. That is what caught my attention. The notices were from 1930.

We will get back to Vesti herself later. First, I learned some details that bear on the whole story.

Obviously, we are talking about Georgia with all the history that comes with it. The first death notice not only gave me the Montreal Station reference but the Hanley name as well. I had a memory that it was a Black funeral home. Keep in mind that Segregation was still the law at the time. And I had visited Anderson Cemetery before and knew it to be a Black cemetery dating to the early part of the 20th century. 

Checking Anderson Cemetery in Find A Grave, I find multiple Fowlers. And Vesti is missing her birth details. Not even a birth year. When was Vesti born? And where? Is she related to these other Fowlers?

My task was clear. What wasn't clear was where I would end up and what I would learn.

It wasn't long before I realized that I needed to build a Fowler tree if I were to have any hope at success.

If you have never tried to research a Black family's genealogy, then you cannot fully appreciate what I found. Recall that prior to Emancipation, anyone in slavery was property. Chattle. There was no difference between a slave and a horse or cow in the official documentation. Not until the 1870 US Census were Blacks counted as people unless they were free.

If you can get anyone much beyond that 1870 date, then you have done something.

I done something!

I quickly learned that Vesti was born in May of 1890 to Mason and Lucy Fowler. And I realized that she was one of eight surviving of the nine children her mother had born as of the 1900 Census. 

This alone is a better than average result researching a single Black woman born in the 19th century in the deep south. But this is just a start! I also found her Death Certificate (where I first discovered her parents' names and confirmed her grave location). 

Having a person and parents in hand was the point where I started the tree in earnest. The 1900 Census indicated that Mason was born about 1860 and Lucy about 1863, both in Georgia (hardly a surprise). What more could I glean about them? 

As it turned out, quite a bit!

Beyond finding the couple and their children in the 1880 Census, and the couple alone in the 1870 Census, I found their marriage record from 18 Dec 1879.

But wait! There is more!

Now I had two named families to trace; Fowler and Wood. Let's stay on the Fowler line for the moment. 

Not unsurprisingly, Mason first appears in the records in the 1870 Census at age 11. Ah, ha! He was born in 1859, not 1860! 

Side note: I think it is an almost 100% probability that the death record, death certificate, or obituary for anyone born in the 19th century will be disproven by census records. I am shocked if the year is only off by one.

The 1870 Census gave me Mason's parents! James (born about 1833) and Elizabeth (Born about 1834). I was surprised to see that Elizabeth gave her birth state as South Carolina. Even assuming she was born in South Carolina, close to the Georgia border, she still made a significant journey to end up in the area in Georgia where she and James could meet. Did she relocate before or after Emancipation? Was her migration her choice? Or was she sold? Did her owner move and take her with him? Or something else? 

Regretfully, I cannot find anything that sheds light on that question.

Still, I did manage to find another rarish record. I found James and Elizabeth's marriage record from 14 May 1869! So now I had her maiden name, too. Great?

Alas, this was as far back as I could trace either James or Elizabeth. Still, this is a much better than expected result. And I did manage to identify four of Mason's siblings. Perhaps they, too, had remained in the area, leaving records behind. 

I tried to align their details with the 1860 Slave Schedule to see if the data might indicate where the Fowler and Hollingsworth name might have originated (i.e., did they adopt their former owner's surname after Emancipation as many freed slaves did?) But, unfortunately, that led to a dead-end. Either there were no results, or there were too many possibilities.

I leave Mason's siblings aside for the moment and return to his wife, Lucy. Can I trace her line?

Maybe.

Lucy and Mason married in 1879 and appear without other family members on the 1880 Census. Searching for Lucy Wood does return a family in Georgia on the 1870 Census. I cannot confirm that this is our Lucy. However, it is the only Lucy Wood of the correct age and race coming up in Georgia, and the location is not terribly far from where she and Mason married and lived, so it may be her.

Assuming for the moment that this is our Lucy, we have intriguing new data. The 1870 Census has a seven year old Black girl, apparently the daughter of Jefferson (age 50) and Melissa Wood (age 45), along with several siblings and one very interesting woman: Mary Jennings, age 80, born in Virginia.

If the typical pattern applies here, Mary is most likely Melissa's mother, thus Jefferson's mother-in-law and Lucy's maternal grandmother. If, and this is a big 'if,' this is Lucy and her family, then Mary is Vesti's great-grandmother and was born in Virginia ca. 1790. Tracing a Black family to the 18th century is akin to finding a seven-leaf clover; it is possible but exceedingly rare. I only wish I could confirm this relationship.

At this point, I started fleshing out Vasti's siblings. That ended up being the frustrating exercise I fully anticipated when I started. It seems they scattered to the four winds. One brother may - and I emphasize "may" - have married in Missouri unusual - but understandable - circumstances. I present to you the court order involved. Judge for yourself.

 I cannot stop imagining the bride's father with a pistol in his pocket. I found a divorce record from Detroit two years later that would seem to state that she divorced him for abuse and desertion. 

Gee. Who would have predicted that?

Closer to home, I found one of Vasti's brothers did remain in the general area, marry, father several children, and, sadly, lose two of those children at or before birth.

One already had a Find A Grave memorial, but the other did not. Yes, I corrected that oversight and submitted updates to link all the parents and children, dates, locations, marriages, etc., that I could identify.

Alas, Elmer and his wife, Nannie Lou (George - I cannot locate her grave - she appears to have passed in the 1920s) lost at least a third daughter, Odessa. Odessa accounts for several firsts in my research.

First off, this is the first time I have encountered someone in a sanitarium. No, Odessa was not insane. A sanitarium at the time equates to what would be a long-term health care facility today. There was no cure for Tuberculosis at that time. The best that could be done for a patient was to mitigate the symptoms and make the person as comfortable as possible.

On another side note, the Battle Hill Sanitarium was located near the "new" and "fashionable" West View Cemetery near Atlanta. I am sure that having a cemetery so close by was a great comfort to patients with a terminal disease.

Second, never before have I encountered a death certificate where the deceased's details were supplied by the hospital from its records.

Third, and most interestingly, the burial location is a first for me. I initially read it as "Emory View." That name made no sense to me. Nor could I locate any reference to such a cemetery. Only after I enlarged the image was I aware that it read "Emory Univ." Emory University is a (mostly) medical school near Atlanta. It was a moment of clarity. Emory is always in need of cadavers for the medical students, and the costs of burying someone during the Depression had to be financially crippling to a Black family in the south. So, if there was a plan to bury Odessa at Chestnut Hill (as was initially entered), it is entirely understandable if that changed to donating her body to science.

By this point, I had spent the better part of two or three days at the computer, poring over online records, building the tree. I needed a break and fresh air. What better excuse to go roam about a cemetery? Off to Anderson Cemetery! Are there Fowler headstones to find?

Oy! Let me answer that question simply by saying, "Damned if I know. Maybe?"

Expectations collided with reality. And expectations lost.

I had been to Anderson Cemetery before and remembered it as about half an acre of moderately maintained grounds. But, I had not really explored it before. It turned out to be closer to three acres of mostly abandoned and grown chaos.

This is Anderson Cemetery as I recalled it.

See those trees in the back of the photos? That is where Hell begins.

Note the headstones peeking out. Many, many markers have sunk into the ground and are barely visible now.

Every cemetery needs an abandoned truck frame, doesn't it?

Born in West Virginia, served in WWI in a Pioneer regiment, and buried in Georgia? There has to be a story there.

But it will have to wait for another time.

"You seriously don't know?" or "What a way to go"

Many days when Ol' Br'er isn't out in the world scampering amongst the tombstones, he is ensconced back in the warren, in his shorts, and surfing the web researching dead folks. With more than 10,000 people on the family tree, there are plenty to research.

And all these cemetery visits just end up adding to the research list. Interesting people are found who just beg to be researched. Hell, they sometimes even get their own tree built to further the research effort and help to update Find A Grave memorials. 

Find a child who is not linked to its parents? Research and update the memorial.

Find a veteran without birth or death dates? Research and update the memorial.

Find someone with a surname in Br'er's tree? Research to see if they are related.

I think you get the idea. Rare is the time when Br'er doesn't have several Find A Grave updates queued up for approval. And all that doesn't include updates to cemeteries and graveyards themselves. Descriptions, directions, GPS coordinates - they all need to be checked and updated as well.

All this research has the natural result of reading a lot of death certificates as well as comparing data from multiple sources. More to the point, this reveals discrepancies between the various sources.

And these discrepancies drive me crazy with questions.

One of the most common is age or birth year. I have lost count of the number of times I see someone with conflicting birth years. 

Let's use fictional Mary as an example. Her Find A Grave memorial gives her birth year and 1881. And that is the year given on Social Security records. But! she appears on the 1880 US Census as being 2 years old. Skipping the lost 1890 Census for obvious reasons, we find here again on the 1900 US Census still in her parents' household, this time age 20.

Neat trick, that. No question that this is her on the Census. The location, parents, etc. are all correct.

The current movement of "Gender Fluidity" has nothing on prior generations. Hell, they had Age Fluidity and Spelling Fluidity in spades!

To be fair, specific age was less important in the 19th century. Exhibiting maturity and judgment were far more important and drove when one might be considered an adult in the eyes of the community.

The less said about spelling the better. Education was not as important as being able to work.

It is the errors and missing data on death certificates that befuddles me.

I am not talking about cases where a 'friend' or acquaintance provides the details on a death certificate because the deceased has no family around. No, I am talking about a spouse or child who apparently knows nothing about the deceased's parents, birth details, etc.

The initials "D.K." infuriate me. Don't Know. 

If I am generous I can forgive not knowing birth locations for parents of the deceased. But not even their names? 

Then again.....

I can't complain too much when there are so many examples in my own family. 

• My father did not know his grandmother's name.
• I had the first and middle names of one of my uncles reversed. This is what my father told me his brother's name was. We were both shocked when he died and saw the official paperwork and learned that we were wrong.
• My father reversed my first and middle names on some banking paperwork.
• My aunt (by marriage) did not, after decades of marriage, know my uncle (another of my father's brothers) was named for his grandfather.

I am beginning to sense a pattern here. My family knows next to nothing about each other.

Another habit of mine is reading people's causes of death. At least when I can READ it. Deciphering handwritten cause of death is second in difficulty only to reading written prescriptions. I mean, I have horribly poor handwriting but these people make me look like a medieval monk making illuminated manuscripts!

I thought about sharing the images of some of the more interesting cases I have encountered but decided against it. Yes, these are public documents. And yes, these are a century old, more or less. But on the ridiculously remote possibility that a member of the individual's family might come across this, I am opting to not share the images. I could spend a lot of time 'greeking' (a video production term meaning removal of all identifying data) the images, but frankly, that is too damned much work.

Some of the more typical causes I've seen:

• Stillborn (always tragic and heart-wrenching)
• Influenza (Gasp! These seem to be concentrated in the late 1910s!)
• Dysentery (I will forego the obvious jokes about what a way to go this is - that fruit is too low hanging)
• Various cancers and heart issues

Then there are the more unusual, though still tragic

• Suicide
• Bullet in the brainpan (that is literally what is listed as COD)
• Self-inflicted gunshot (sometimes noting to the head - yes, I have seen more than a couple of these)

And then there is my all-time favorite. I repeat that, for the families involved, all deaths are tragic - even those where the deceased is over 90 years old and passed away from natural causes. But this one, well I still laugh thinking about it. Before I came across it I would have bet any amount of money that it never happened.

"Sudden deceleration trauma". 

The individual died in a car wreck.

Thinking about it now, one could write an interesting book based on an analysis of death certificate data over time. Aside from the more colorful CODs like sudden deceleration trauma, breaking out the data by age, COD, date, etc. could be fascinating. 

Or maybe I am just a data nerd and no one else would give a damn.

Yeah. That is probably the case.

Flabbergasted

"I've never seen anything like it in my life!" - Albert Blossom

If you need another clue to place that reference, well, recall a two headed llama.

What? You don't know what a Pushmi-pullyu is?

Yesterday presented me with the cemetery equivalent of the Pushmi-pullyu. And I've never seen anything like it in my life.

But more on that later.

The whole day started with a sojourn out to Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta for one primary quest and one secondary.

The first quest was to allow Mrs. Br'er to find an illicit cenotaph she had read about on Facebook. It seems that the family erected a cenotaph without the knowledge or permission of the cemetery. The cemetery cannot legally remove it, the family refuses to move it, and the monument company that was hired to place it will not remove it without the permission or direction of the family. So it is a three way standoff.

Personally I don't see the big deal. It is a stone placed by the family in the family plot. It is their space to do with as they choose.

Still, it is a funny story. When you add in that the man was a former slave as is considered a Confederate Veteran, well that just makes it all the better.

If you are so inclined you can read more from the two Find A Grave entries for the man at Oakland and Marietta.

The secondary quest was to see the rather large and relatively newly placed sarcophagus for country music star Kenny Rogers. If you click through the link to his Find A Grave memorial there are several photos. The design is clearly symbolic. And we were taken aback a little when we realized that only his name appears along with reference to the gospel song, "Will the circle be unbroken?" There is no reference to birth and death dates, family, nothing. Just the name and quote. Odd. Perhaps there is a bronze plaque on order. Perhaps not.

In planning that little outing, I checked the surrounding area to see if there were any interesting cemeteries we haven't yet visited. I located a smaller one (fewer than 1,000 burials, if that counts as "small"). Mrs. Br'er jokingly asks if there are any relatives in it. When you have several generations of family in an area it is almost a certainty that you will find them in various cemeteries. So checking for family surnames is a virtual habit.

Yup. Found one of the main surnames. Checked the family tree and wouldn't you know it? 1st cousin thrice removed and his wife. This gives us a specific goal when we get there beyond just traipsing around.

What we found, well, that was the shock. Not that it is an abandoned cemetery. No, that is expected. Even though this is a city area and one would hope it would be maintained by someone - a civic association if not the city or county itself - it is clearly not been maintained in some time. Though there has obviously been some recent work done in terms of grass cutting.

No it was the camper that threw me.

Seriously. A full size trailer camper. The kind you tow behind a truck or SUV. With a rather large portable generator providing electricity. And it has clearly been there for at least several days as there is a used campsite fire spot nearby.

And lest you think this was as abandoned, too, there were some three people living in it. We saw them as we pulled into the cemetery. A couple were in a back section and one was near the camper. 

Naturally we attracted their attention and one of the women (it was two women and one man) engaged with Mrs. Br'er (yes, I deliberately used her as a decoy while I sought to accomplish our mission to locate the distant relative ASAFP so we could get out of there) while I stayed focused on finding the graves.

I don't think anyone noticed, but I kept head on a swivel and my hand in my pocket at all times. Yes, I had a certain protection on me ready to deploy immediately if needed.

Good habits came to bear along with more than a little luck. There was already a photo of the headstone on-line so I knew what I was looking for. I have a better than average knack at pattern and shape recognition. So it is not uncommon for me to be able to spot a particular sought after marker at a distance just based on shape.

Such was my luck this time. I spotted the headstone less than a minute from exiting the car and mere seconds after the woman approached us. So I headed off to it while Mrs. Br'er chatted. A quick check to confirm the details are correct, everything is logged, and I am done. Well, almost. There is a small headstone immediately adjacent to these graves. I check and it is a child with the same last surname. Obviously a child. But the child's memorial in Find A Grave has no photograph or GPS, nor is it linked to anyone. I upload a quick photo, GPS tag it, and mark it for follow-up and head back to Mrs. Br'er and the car. All in all less than 90 seconds from spotting the headstone to being back at my starting spot.

Now ordinarily I am a chatty person in a cemetery. But all my alarms are going off so I do not want to be trapped into a conversation at the time. So I usher Mrs. Br'er into the car and we head back to the warren. On the way she shares with me that the woman told her they are there cleaning and documenting the cemetery. 

Yeah, maybe. Maybe not. I have never seen anyone doing any cleaning and research who sets up a literal camp in the cemetery before. And I am not wholly convinced that I have now. Yes, there has be some work done. But that could be a cover to try and keep from being run off. And I have encountered too many people who push for "donations" to "help with the upkeep". Mrs. Br'er tells me that the woman admitted to having done only some 6 or 7 Find A Grave updates. 

The whole thing is simply too sketchy for my comfort. So sketchy that I was not even comfortable enough getting a quick photo of the whole setup. Not even surreptitiously. My Bunny Brain was telling me to get the hell out of Dodge. So that is what we did.

So I am left with the mental image that "Cemetery Squatters" is a real thing. I have come across 'urban outdoorsmen' camping near or next to cemeteries and graveyards before. Just never IN the cemetery. I may have to return in a few days to see 1) If they are still there, and 2) If they have really done any additional cleaning. Maybe I will take a photo from a distance if I do go back, just as proof of the whole setup.

Back in the warren I set about looking into the child and my cousin's line. The only thing I could find on the child is the Find A Grave memorial. Not really surprising considering she lived no more than one day. If that long. Birth and Death are the same day. But considering she is buried next to the only two people with the same surname in the whole cemetery. I was comfortable and confident enough to link her to them as her parents. And to put her in the family tree as such. 

But all that led me further down the rabbit hole (pun intended) on this branch of the family and some interesting revelations.

See, the cousin we started out to locate was named for his father making them Sr. and Jr. Only there is some contention in the documentation on whether the father was Wallie or Walter who was called Wallie. Most of the files list Wallie. Most, but not all. Especially not the early census records.

Whatever the name actually started out as it settled on Willie. So we have Wallie, Sr. and Wallie, Jr. Then Wallie, Jr. has a son and names him Wallie III. (Yes, I am leaving out the details so you will not be able to locate any of the graves or the cemetery squatters). Care to take a guess what Willie III chooses to name his son? 

Yup. Wallie IV. Makes for the first person with a IV suffix I have in the tree. I think. That is not something easily searched for. It is the first I can remember at the moment. If I am wrong, sue me.

A side note: In the research I learned that Wallie, Jr. served overseas in the military in the 1950s. I have a record of the whole family - including Wallie III and siblings - sailing to Frankfurt. That had to be an adventure for the kids! This record also confirmed that Wallie, Jr. married late in life, and who the mother of the children was. There was some question as the records are sparse, and until the 1950 - yes, 1950 - Census is released in about 11 or 12 years this travel record is the only document I have linking them all.

Cases like this used to make me wonder if I would someday bump into someone and, after hearing their name, realize that we are distant relations. I say "used to" because it has kinda-sorta happened already. One of the nieces on the wife's side has a friend of many years. One day the two of them asked if I had a certain person in the tree. I did. Come to find out it was one of the friend's direct ancestors who was in turn a direct descendant of one of my ancestors making us distant cousins.

You never know where all this research will take you. Just look at the niece's friend. One day the world is wonderful. The next she learns she is blood kin to me. Talk about a nasty shock!

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.