Tombstone Tuesday - April 27, 2010

Last week I had the opportunity to go to Boston with other family members to see my youngest brother run in the Boston Marathon! It was so much fun and he did a great job finishing in 3 hours and 41minutes.
While I was there we did some sight seeing. Boston is a great place for old, old cemeteries. While I was unable to walk through them, I did get some nice pictures. This cemetery in Boston Commons has tombstone that are so worn by time that you are unable to read the information on the stone. It is called Central Burial Grounds. There are 255 grave in this cemetery. Five of these graves are of famous people.

James Sullivan was a Continental Congressman and a Massachusetts Governor. He served as a Delegate to the Continental Congress from Massachusetts from 1782 to 1783. James also served as a State Court Judge in 1776, Massachusetts State Attorney General from 1790 to 1807, and Governor of Massachusetts from 1807 to 1808.
Stephen Higginson was a Continental Congressman and served as a Delegate to the Continental Congress from Massachusetts in 1783.

Charles Sprague was one of the first American born poet. Many of his odes and prologues were delivered at historical Boston events and his works were first published in 1841. He is the son of Boston Tea Party participant Samuel Sprague, and a descendent of Mayflower passenger, Richard Warren. He is the grandfather of American painters, Charles Sprague Pearce and William Houghton Sprague Pearce.

Tuesday Tombstone - April 13, 2010

 I am trying to get ready for a trip to Boston to watch my brother run the Boston Marathon! We are so excited but there is a long drive ahead of us and I have to come from Chicago to Michigan first…On Friday we will all leave Michigan and drive to Niagara Falls. My mother’s side of the family originated from the Niagara Area so today, I am going to show you some tombstones from that side of our family. A few years back I was able to locate a cousin who is 7 generations removed and still lives in the Niagara area. She is very nice lady whose name is Corlene Taylor. We are going to meet her for dinner on Friday. I am really looking forward to it.

So today we will honor some Hainers in the Niagara area.  As a family, we have visited the Niagara area many times and we always visited the usual tourist venues not realizing that we had a family history connection in the area.   So in 2003 when my husband and I visited the area and we met Corlene, she was able to gave me a very different tour of the Niagara Falls area, a “this is where your Hainer’s lived” tour.

As it turned out, the campground which we were camping at according to Corlene was likely the hunting grounds that the Hainers hunted on. The land which they received from Queen Ann was just down the road from the campground. They would have lived in a small corner settlement near by. There had been a small church and quite a large cemetery located at the corner. It is likely that our Hainers are buried there and we know for sure that some are because their tombstones were some of the remaining few which survived years of neglect and cemetery looting. The Church was torn down many years ago and the neglected cemetery became over grown and eventually just disappeared. Cattle and horses grazed the land which the cemetery was on and the tombstones for the most part are gone. The few that remained were place in a wall as a memorial.  The land is now a large horse farm. As you can see the wall that these stones have been placed in are in the middle of a horse pasture.

It is a shame but unfortunately the cemetery was not protected. There are no records to indicate for sure who is buried in that cemetery. They just know that it was there and it was a large cemetery and none of the remains were ever moved.

Catharine Hainer was the daughter of Albert Hainer and Catharine Vollick born in 1811. Catharine Hainer married Jonas Larraway November 3, 1836. She died on Novmeber 17, 1845 at the age of 34 Years, 7 months and 27 days.
 
Catherine was the younger sister of our Henry Hainer who was the first son born of Albert and Catharine (Vollick ) Hainer born in 1789.

Tombstone Tuesday – April 6, 2010

Crooked Run Cemetery,  Dover Ohio

Ruby Crites is the daughter of William and Mary A. (Forney) Crites and was the Great Granddaughter of Revolutionary War Veteran Jacob Crites. She is buried in Crooked Run Cemetery with her Great Grandfather, her Grandfather John Crites and Grandmother Mary (Walters) Crites. Crooked Run Cemetery is locate in Tuscarawas County in Ohio which is near Dover, Ohio. She died at the age of 12 years, 2 months and 16 days.

Easter is a blessing …..from the past to the present …..

Easter was the most important holiday for our Smith Family. Grandpa Everett was a Methodist Minister. He knew the importance of the holiday and lived it each and every day throughout his life. He knew that Jesus died for our sins on the cross on Good Friday and rose again on Sunday to be with his father in heaven. Everett knew that he too would one day rise again and live in Heaven. And he shared this message of love with everyone he came in contact with. His delivered this message with such confidence and ease, it made it easy for us all to believe. His spirit created a sense of well being when you were around him. It gave you the desire to stay and enjoy his company. His gentle voice surrounded you much like the warm hugs which he offered freely. I felt totally safe and secure when he wrapped his arms around me. He seemed to always know what to say and when to say it.

When I think back about him and all the people whose lives that he touched, I am in awe. All the marriage he performed which created new families and all the baptisms he performed as those families grew. This is a photo of the couples he married in one of his 8 congregations and the children he baptized and the teens which he confirmed.

Everett was very active during the summer with the summer young adult camps north of Port Huron in Lakeport which today is known as the Lake Huron Retreat Center. He touched the lives of all these young people during one camp retreat with his quiet, gentle loving style.

 

 

 

It makes me wonder how often we realize the impact that we have on the people around us each day. How many of those people do we “trespass against” without a second thought? We go through our daily lives “doing our thing” with little thought about the people whom we come in contact with.

 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."
 
I would like to remind you that each and every day we are given many chances to impact others as they cross our paths. Jesus made a point of making each of these daily events or occurrences count. He used them to teach the lessons of life. He showed people how to truly love one another and live in harmony. As I think about Grandpa Everett, I realize that he did his human best to try to do the same. May the blessings of this Easter teach us to be gentle in spirit and full of love for each other! And a beautiful new world will evolve!


Much love and blessing to you on this Easter morning!

Jan