GraveMusings

It has been awhile since I have updated this blog and I apologize. It seems that real life keeps getting in the way of our plans. But after postponing several times we finally made our way to Renville County. We stopped at a couple of places on our way, one of them being Easter Cemetery near Balaton, MN. This small abandoned cemetery is in danger of disappearing completely. It is on a paved county road and is visible from the road and surrounded by fields on the other three sides. As you can see from the pictures on the website it is thick with vegetation and weeds and almost impossible to walk through. We gave up after tripping several times in the holes that were invisible through the weeds.

We found two abandoned churches and you have no idea how hard it was to walk away from them with breaking in to take some pictures. But not wanting to call my husband for bail money was some incentive and we settled for pictures of the outsides.

Some of our stops included Finnish Cemetery, a very well maintained historical cemetery. The only one so far that I have seen asking for donations! There was a plastic box nailed to a tree with envelopes inside so that you could mail it in. I wonder if anyone has sent them anything??

We stopped at the Marguth Monument. Not much there to see, we decided not to walk the trail, it winds through a battlefield from the Indian Uprising of 1862-1865. Apparently at one time there were plans made to start a Veterans Cemetery. Only four markers there now, not sure what happened…

Vicksburg Cemetery was a place we really wanted to see. Located in a wooded area and long abandoned, but unfortunately someone has vandalized the cemetery. Every stone except for one was knocked over and smashed. There was also some pvc pipe crosses still standing. The town was abandoned and its location is now part of a county park.

At German Lutheran Cemetery someone had painted some of the stones to make them more legible. I hope the paint isnt a kind that proves caustic to the type of stone the markers are made of. Chemicals in the paint may eat away at the stone.

We also stopped at First English Cemetery and Cairo Cemetery…

Yesterday I was finally able to get to Winnebago Cemetery in Nebraska. This is an beautiful cemetery, the oldest stones located on top of a hill. I spent two hours there and ran out of room on my camera! We are planning on returning in the fall. I also found some old interesting stones at Omaha Valley Cemetery also in Nebraska. Pictures will be on the website soon thegravesite.net I have been filling in at work for vacation coverage. While the extra money is nice it is getting in the way of my trips! Hopefully we have better luck coordinating schedules this fall….

We had a great time on our first trip of the year. Thanks to Brad Kellogg, we had wonderful directions to some places we never would have found on our own. He has a few photos on the site under “Guests”, check them out. Our first stop was Old Log Church Cemetery. You could drive right past this one and never know it was there. It’s very isolated, lonely, on a fairly steep hill, and beautiful. But my pictures don’t do it justice because I had my camera on the wrong setting! Another annual event and one I wish I would stop repeating. My daughter uses a film camera, so maybe hers turned out better than mine. I did post a few of them so you could see where we were. We left wondering where the church had been. The area is steep and hilly and we didn’t see any signs of buildings or a foundation. Maybe across the road…

Our next stop was Tara Hill.  We had our lunch there (strange, I know, but we do that a lot). Seems to be a lot of Irish names here. And a stone says that there was a Catholic church at one time, up until 1969 if I remember right. Hard to believe since this cemetery is really in the middle of no where, down a low maintenance road and not even a farm in sight. Scared a few deer in the brush below the cemetery, that in turn startled us. They sure make a lot of noise when they take off like that…

Jopp Cemetery is a small unkempt cemetery.  Looks like it has been several years since anyone has even bothered to mow. But it does have several beautiful “zinkers” and two that look like miniature bell towers. Zinkers are monuments made from zinc/white bronze and manufactured by the Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, CT. they had a distributor in Des Moines, Iowa and are not uncommon here in the Midwest, although I have never seen this particular design before. They were made from 1875 – 1912. The great thing about these monuments is that the wording does not wear off. If you have ancestors with one of these markers you wont have any trouble reading the inscriptions.

The cemetery in Winnebago is one that we could not get to this trip. Due to road construction and detours and the gas truck that overturned on the road. We do plan to be back in the area later this summer and hopefully have better luck getting to this one.

We went to Taylor Cemetery looking for the Taylor Family Plot. I couldn’t find it but now have better directions! (Thanks Brad!) and when we are in the area later this summer we will definitely locate and photograph this one. Another steep climb, over a barbed wire fence and through some pretty thick brush and still couldn’t find it. But I am told it is there, so will not give up next time. The view was amazing from Tayor Cemetery. On the way back to the car we noticed several broken stones and small pieces and footstones in a pile in the corner of the cemetery. I hope there are other markers in place for these….

One of our next trips is to Renville County, MN. Lots of history in this area, a few abandoned cemeteries, one that is suppose to be haunted and a ghost town that we want to check out. We are also returning to Kossuth County, IA and have several other places planned for trips. If you have any suggestions, let me know!

Welcome to GraveMusings! the blog for TheGraveSite…

This is my first attempt at a blog so please bear with me. I am sure there will be lots of changes. We are adding pictures to the website and will probably add some here too. At this time, we have hundreds of film shots to sort through and scan, and I have lost count of how many digital pictures we have. So this may take some time. While our site is called TheGraveSite, I am sure I will be blogging about whatever comes to mind. I have many interests, although cemetery preservation and photography are the big ones this time of year. Our first trip is planned for May 6 and we are heading south into Nebraska. Hopefully we do not get the Honda stuck in the mud but it seems to happen once a year or so…

I want to thank a few people while I have this in my mind. I could never have set up a website on my own..

First to Steve for suggesting the name for the website. After numerous suggestions and a week of beating my brains out he threw this at me. It’s simple, direct and absolutely perfect…

Tignyx (will put his real name if he says its ok) without his help with all the technical stuff there wouldn’t be a site. Or there might have been, but it would have taken me a whole lot longer. Your help in invaluable and there aren’t enough thank you’s in the world to express our gratitude….and we love your pictures too!

There are many websites that I use for locations, info, maps and will make a list of them at a later date for anyone that is interested. I have met some really nice people on-line that are always willing to try and help me find some of these places. And my on-line friends who aren’t into the cemetery thing but put up with my whining and frustrations and have been supportive throughout this whole endeavor, thank you, you guys know who you are and are the greatest!

To our husbands who put up with us and what most people would consider a pretty strange hobby. But they do seem to get tips for places we should check out from the UPS guy, co-workers and others. They have also pitched in on some pretty cool equipment for us so maybe they don’t think it’s all that strange a hobby. Or they just love us anyway…

And to my other kids who I know thought this was a pretty strange thing to do until they came along on a trip or looked at our pictures. Tara was with us on that first trip to Algona and Josh has driven me to cemeteries in snow storms just so I could get a shot in the snow. And Jesse and Jeremy who take note of any places that they come across and let me know where they are. You guys are all the greatest and I am very lucky to have you in my life….