Tombstone Tuesday - March 16, 2010

Tombstone Tuesday – March 16, 2010

It’s March and I am getting restless for some cemetery time…Been cooped up all winter with snow on the ground and bitter cold. Last week was the first 60 degree day and it looks like we might get a couple more this week so I think I NEED to take a cemetery trip this week…wonder where I should go?

This was my last cemetery trip last fall. Orvis - Sanborn Cemetery is located just inside the Illinois Wisconsin State line on James Road in Northern McHenry County. The Cemetery is situated in Chain of Lakes State park and is protected now. Descandants of the Sanborns or Orvis still take care of this cemetery

There are two John Sanborns buried in this small family cemetery. The center tombstone with the military Star marker is that of John Sanborn who died on Feb. 26, 1866.  The marker is a Civil War GAR marker which I will need to investigate. If John Sanborn died in 1866 (just after the Civil War)and he was 71 when he died, he could not have served in the Civil War when he was in his 70's... That would have meant he was born in 1795.  Born too late for the Revolutionary War, but he could have served  in the War of 1812. Interesting,  I will have to do some digging.  There is a bit of a write up about this cemetery and the Sanborn family on Findagrave.com. 

 John A Sanborn, XI who died in 1994 at the age of 65. Isn’t that interesting is seems to imply that their have been eleven John A Sanborn’s. I will have to see what I can find about that too.

Tombstone Tuesday - March 9, 2010

I would like you to meet John H Crites and Amanda (McGoogan) Crites. Amanda was known as Emma. They are my maternal Great Grandparent on my father's side.

I wish I could have given them a hug. I wish I had known them in the physical sense. I have become very fond of both of them. I am not exactly sure why. The search maybe, the fact that Grandpa Everett had photo’s of them maybe…. I can not be sure. Maybe because they are such a sweet looking couple. Maybe because I was able to find interesting day to day information about them from Melba. Grandpa John had a sweet tooth and chewed a bit of tobacco. Grandma Emma sewed. I hope she did it because she liked it, like me, not just because she had to….. Or that Grandpa did a lot of work to make money to pay for large doctor bills for Emma’s medical care. Wish I knew why she had been sick and what she had. Grandpa John chopped wood and sold it to pay her bills. Or maybe because she had hostas in her yard by her porch, just like me. All of these are good reasons even if they are not the right reason.

It took me some time to find where they were buried. The obit for Emma, said Clio, Michigan because that is where their oldest daughter lived. It became necessary at some point for them to go live with her. SO they did. But the cemetery showed no sigh of them being buried there. I wandered the cemetery several time looking…I looked near Alvin and Cora… I looked near Everett and Lillian….Eventually it took a visit to the Cemetery Office before I could find out exactly where their final resting place was. I could not find it because they had no gravestone. Cora must not have had enough money to buy them one. She, herself a widow, had remarried John Daly, but she did not work. She had no real money to speak of to call her own. So her parents had no gravestone. No obvious marker to tell where they were buried and acknowledge the fact that they had existed at all.

It made me feel sad. This cute couple which I had gotten to know through family documents, photos, census records, a Store ledger and a Doctors log had no gravestone. Nothing left in the world, other than records on paper, to prove that they had existed. I felt compelled to change that. I worked and I had a bit of money so I bought them one because I loved my Grandma Emma and Grandpa John. I want the next Grandchild who goes in search of this sweet couple to be able to find them. So today’s Tombstone Tuesday shows the tombstone of John H Crites and Amanda (McGoogan) Crites.

So I could finally hug them!

I love you Grandma Emma and Grandpa John!

Your Granddaughter, Jan

Tombstone Tuesday - February 23, 2010

Charles(Moon) Anderson, son of Addie(Densmore) and Andrew Anderson, was born on March 5, 1925. He served in the Navy during WW2. Charles married Carol Marzolf on February 19th, 1955 in Marine City, Michigan. Charles was a boiler operator for the Automotive Industry for 25 years. He was a member of the South Eastern Michigan Conservation club and a member of the Marine City Fire Department. He died Sunday February 26th, 1989 at the age of 63. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Marine City, Michigan.