July 11, 2005

    I am eat up with chiggers. Now for those of you that don't know what that is, they are these tiny red bugs that bite you when you are in the grass.How did I get eat up? I went nosing through an old cemetery. Last weekend my husband John and I went four wheeling. I had him take me to an old Shoemaker cemetery. It was grown over, but of course I couldn't keep from trumping through the grass to check out the headstones. John put his foot in his mouth and sunk it right to the knee when he said, "this place needs cleaned up". "Yes it does," I said, "this is a shame, all these graves and you can't tell were they are". He spent over four hours cutting, clearing and mowing that graveyard off. Saturday I was so excited I couldn't wait to get back to that graveyard and check those headstones out.I took my mother with me. So off we went with camera, paper, and pen. I had ask the county to grade me a road to the graveyard, they came out and made a really nice road. Now you can drive your car right in to the cemetery. John did a wonderful job clearing it off. It didn't even look like the same graveyard. Me and mom counted over forty unmarked graves. I took pictures of all the headstones, wrote down all the dates and info that mom gave me on how each were related to me. I was in graveyard heaven.Thank God for digital cameras, I don't think I could have waited to have film developed.  These were my grandma Martha Shoemaker Millers family. Mom told me that dad had a little brother buried there. We looked at all the headstones and couldn't find his grave. We wondered off in different directions, yelling back and forth to each other. Somehow we came upon this rock with some writting on it. I kept running my finger over and over the letters to try and make out what they spelled. I sat down in the grass( that's how I got bit by chiggers ) and kept trying to figure them out. LL....MILLER....We had found dads brothers grave. There wasn't a single flower on any of the graves. I had bought some flowers to take to the cemetery were dad is buried, they were in the trunk of my car. I went and got them out and me and mom put them on as many graves as we could. Dad would have wanted it that way. He would have been proud of me and mom. When we left there we stopped and visited dads grave for awhile and then went on to the Vanderpool cemetery. I felt like I had hit the jackpot. It was full of Shoemakers and Williams. Mom and dads sides of the family. I took pictures of all those headstones and wrote down all the info that I found. Mom was a wealth of info. I'm so glad that I took her with me. I couldn't wait to get back to get in touch with my cousin Cheryl, our grandmothers were sisters. Cheryl is in to this genealogy stuff too. I sat up till three A.M. checking census records, my family history and genealogy site trying to place people with their headstones and in the lineup of the family tree. I guess you have to be interested in genealogy to get so excited about finding old graveyards. Sunday mom didn't go to church, she called and said that she had a bunch of old pictures if I wanted to look at them. Did I? I was so excited, off I went, I came home with a big stack of photos to copy. While mom and I were talking, she said, "we had a good day, didn't we". Yes we did, and good Lords willing we will have some more of them. I had no ideal that mom would be interested in going on these graveyard hunts with me. Now that I know I will start taking her with me. There's a Branson graveyard that I want to find. I wonder what mom will be doing Saturday.

Barb

My Friend

    This was my friend Barb. She is no longer with us. She passed away in 1986. Barb and I grew up together. I remember when we used to get out in her dads old car. She was so short that she had to put a pillow in the seat so that she could see over the steering wheel. I have so many good memories of her. She married my oldest brother Jr. and they have two children. I had a dream about her Monday night. I dreamed that we were walking down a road with some more girls and Barb suddenly stopped and said that she wasn't going with us. I kept calling to her to come on. I woke up. I have been thinking about that dream and Barb a lot lately. I really miss her. She was one of those friends that you could spill your heart out to and not worry that she would tell everybody. We shared a lot of secrets. I miss her. She enriched my life so much. I wish that I had of told her just how much her friendship meant to me. I hope she knew. She  was a very special girl and I will never forget her.

July 22, 2005

   Last Sunday me, Lisa, mom, and my sister JoAnn set out looking for graveyards. The sun was out when we left but it soon started clouding over. We got to an old Hobbs/Stamper/Cox  cemetery on Big Andy Ridge in Wolfe Co., Ky. We had pulled up in the roadway when the rain started coming down. Ok now you know I'm not leaving here without looking at each and every headstone. I was getting anxious, I prayed for the rain to let up. Finally I couldn't take it anymore, the rain was slacking up so I get out of the jeep with my ever loving digital camera, pen and notebook. I go from grave to grave. JoAnn is yelling at me and mom to watch for snakes. It was almost funny, seemed like every other word from her was snake. She is afraid of them. I am too, but not enough to keep me from my journey through that graveyard. We were looking at some tombs when the rain started coming down again, we went in this house that is built over some childrens graves. That was pretty interesting. After the rain let up some we took off and went to several more graveyards. Each time JoAnn would lecture me and mom about watching for snakes. We made it through the day without seeing one. Thank goodness. I found several old family ancestors headstones. I'm trying to figure out how to post them on my site without taking up all my space.Sunday I'm planning on going to Little Sinking to look for moms great grandparents graves. We are going to ride four wheelers because the roads are so bad. It's a shame that the roads haven't been taken care of. But families die off and there's noone left to care for the graves let alone the roads. I'll let you know how my trip goes.