My maternal grandfather, who we called Pa, was a farmer who would take my oldest sister on "farm walks". They would go all over the farm while he pointed out different things to her and talked about them. By the time I came along he and my Grandmother (Mom) had left the farm and moved to town. They had a beautiful garden in their backyard with lots of flowers. Behind the garden was an old shed with a fence and lots of bushes growing and behind that was one of the town cemeteries. This cemetery was where many from my father's paternal side were buried. So, we pick bunches of flowers and since the days of farm walks were over he took my 3 sisters and I on a cemetery walk. There was no way to get through the bushes behind the garden so we would walk down the road past the neighbor Grace's house to the back drive into the cemetery. The gate was always locked so we would go through bushes and trees. One was a paw paw tree which was not familiar to these northern Indiana girls. Past the Paw Paw tree was the opening into the cemetery.
As we walked past the old tombstones I began a lifetime love of cemeteries. We placed flowers on our paternal grandfather's grave with Pa explaining that some day our Grandma would be buried beside him. Near them was great great grandfather Colonel Tom, who was in the Indiana Militia, and great great grandmother Martha's grave, with great grandfather Oliver and Great Grandmother Moretta close by. In another row great great great grandparents the Hadleys rested. Sprinkled aboutin this section of the cemetery were so many of my ancestors. Many of these people were pioneers, coming to this area when the Native Americans were still there, forging their homes and a new life out of the wilderness. Some of them were soldiers fighting in the Civil War. As we laid flowers on the graves Pa talked to us about each one. Even though they weren't his blood relatives they were his family all the same. This is how I began to learn about history, not just my own, but the history of the United States, of these brave people who came here for a better life for them and their families.
We also visited the cemeteries where mother's family was buried. Pa's parents, grandparents and great grandparents all were buried in the Clayton Cemetery and now he and my grandmother lie there too. There was also the Center Valley Cemetery where my mother's grandparents, great grandparents great great grandparents were laid to rest.
My love of cemeteries has never stopped, nor has my love of family and it's history. This is just a few of the cemeteries, in this place where my parents grew up, where family members were laid to rest. Because of this love, the visits to these cemeteries became weekend trips as I continues to look for my roots. On one such trip my husband and I stopped at a cemetery in the town near where my father grew up. I hadn't visited this one for awhile but the last time I was there it was so filled with weed and grass it was hard to see the tombstones. This time it was almost bare, as though someone had taken a Bush Hog through it, and pieces of broken tombstones lay strung about. I knew about where the stone I was looking for was and sure enough I found it, the military marker for my great great grandfather, Thomas South. As I was taking a picture of it my husband, bending over said, "what is this?" He lifted up a piece of a tombstone lying right by the military stone and then pulled another one out of the dirt. It was Thomas South's original family stone! We never even knew there had been one, it had laid buried and broken for years. I took pictures of it and gently turned it over to preserve it. Several years years ago the cemetery was restored. I couldn't help but at the time, but one of my sisters did. She got to work on cleaning this tombstone my husband had found along with others of some of his children who had died as infants.A few years ago my sisters,a cousin and I were able to hike to the Nichols family pioneer cemetery where my great great great grandparents are buried. With the owner of the property we walked through woods and up and down hills, through ditches with water in them finally coming out on a hill where tombstones laid on the grounds. A local cemetery preservationist had been there several years before us and she along with the owner dug the stones out, photographed them and then turned them back over to preserve them from the elements. We turned them over to see the names, and just quietly talked about this pioneer family who buried their loved ones here. This cemetery trip was the highlight of many years of cemetery trips, starting with my grandfather when I was a small child who couldn't even read and culminating in these woods on a hill in central Indiana looking down on these pioneers who I have such a connection too. This is what family and love is about.
"But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait ,The sky, not the grave, is our goal;Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!"
Horatio G. Spafford
