07 December 2010

Tombstone Tuesday--Some Family Granite

A visit today to some of the family granite.  This time, it is the stones that drive me crazy.
In a lovely cemetery just north of Newaygo County, lie my Great-, and Great-great-grandparents.  The GGgrandpa was the first ancestor that I discovered when I began researching my mothers side of the family.  He was a Civil War veteran and according to my uncle, his son (my Great-grandpa) used to call him the Old Gent.
Quite distinguished, huh? 
 Anyway, the Gilbert stone shown above faces North and arranged behind them are the stones for the Old Gent and his wife, son and his wife, and a grandddaughter.  Almost all other large stones in the cemetery face East or West. 
Now, you would think that a stone that big would be easy to find, but for some reason, even though this is a fairly small cemetery, on many of my trips here, I search and search, and sometimes still do not find it.  Or the individual stones behind it.
These stones give a hint of while the individual stones are hard to find
 This picture of Roy's stone, and that of Ada below were taken in 2004.  I had come with my cousin and armed with a trowel, we had dug the sod away, exposing the pink granite that had been covered all five of the small stones. 

Those picture were taken just 14 months after the pictures shown below.  I had no trowel that day in 2003, and the stones were simply cleared as best as I could with no tools. 
The sod was encroaching, but the names were visible, if not the edges of the stones.
The stone of their daughter, Myrtle Schermerhorn I barely touched.  I knew that there were living descendants of hers, and while I cleaned, I didn't want to disturb too much. You can see here though, that the sod is covering nearly all of the pink polished border.
 
I would like to add that these stones are the most frustrating of my family.  Besides the simple act of trying to find them (and last time I stopped there, I could not find any of my Gilberts, even if close to other family). I hate the fact that they keep getting buried by sod.
And I want to add, my family have all been strictly warned, I want a stone that stands above the surface when I go,  Not one of these flush to the ground vanishing stones.
No vanishing stone for me!

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