Thursday, September 20, 2012

cemetery visits with grandma

 So for almost a year now I've been trying to plan I day for my mother and I to take my grandma Meeks to the cemeteries where her families are buried.  Now unlike all my other trips to the cemeteries, this one was different.  This time it wasn't just for me to show Grandma who I'd found and where they were, but it was for the 3 of us to find them together.  The hard part was that the burial locations of these family members were a bit confusing.  We started our day out at Mount Olive where my grandmother's parents and 2 of her brothers are buried.  Her grandmother Emma is also buried there, but unfortunately for whatever reason she has no headstone so we just stopped by the general area to say hey.

Next stop was Graceland cemetery and that turned out to be an interesting visit.  My grandmother had already known that her grandfather was buried there with his brother, the brother's wife and their daughter.  What she didn't know was that I also found out her Great-Grandparents were also buried there with 2 of their sons and a daughter in law.  The weird thing about both these Graceland plots was that there are also some other people we don't know buried there as well.  For instance in Plot G; the plot with the great-grandparents, there are also a 46 year old man with the last name De Bellay and a 7 yr old boy named William Ratcliffe.  We have no idea who those people are and we don't really know how to find out why they're buried there.  In Plot D with her grandfather there are the 4 people we know are related to us, plus 6 other people! Again totally stumped on that one.  I'm hoping I'll be able to figure that out some time soon; any tips would be helpful!

Last stop was up in Evanston at Calvary Cemetery.  Now of course this cemetery has a similar dilemma to Graceland.  Here there is a 12 grave plot (11 filled) that is owned by a man named Patrick Kelly.  In this plot there are the following family members: Marion Larson (my grandmother's sister who died as an infant), Ellen Cochrane (wife of a Cochrane buried at Graceland, my grandma's grandma)  Ellen's parents Bridget & Henry Taylor as well as 2 siblings John & Mary Taylor, David Cochrane (grandma's uncle) & Susan Lafferty (grandma's aunt).  So I'm left with these 3 people: Mary Johnson (2 days old), Michael Cannon (2 yrs 9 mos) & John Kelly.  Obviously John Kelly is related to the owner Patrick some how, but the other 2 i'm totally lost on again.  Right now we're assuming the Kelly family is related to the Taylor family; both being Irish last names maybe it's some family member from the mother Bridget's side??

Graceland - Lot D

Graceland - Lot G

Calvary Cemetery


Needless to say every time I go to a cemetery I come back with great pictures and more questions than I had when I went to the cemetery to begin with.  Here's to hoping I can get them figured out soon?

Happy Hunting friends!!