Unfinished business

My brother was the genealogist for our particular branch of the family tree.  As such he not only did the paper record searches, he also attempted to document whenever possible the physical records.  By this I mean that he wanted to see the old paper writings but he also wanted to see the grave markers.  I had lots of opportunities with him both at family gatherings and at his house on various occasions to look at the stuff he had accumulated.  That stuff includes photos of every family grave that he was able to locate.

I have heard two versions of this tale, one told to me by my brother and one told to me by a cousin who told the tale to me as it had been told to him by my brother.

I am going to tell the tale as told to me by my brother.

Jim had found most of the old graves but was missing an important one.  Grossvater, our great great grandfather George Miller, was the oldest relative for whom he had photos and documents but for whom Jim was missing a photo of the grave.  Family oral history said that Grossvater was buried at the Spooner Cemetery and that the grave was not marked.  As Jim told me the story he was at the Spooner Cemetery just generally looking around trying to get his bearings possibly hoping to somehow locate the grave when he was approached by a neighbor of the cemetery.  The neighbor wanted to know if he could help, Jim told him what he was looking for.  The neighbor was not able to personally help but he did know who the person in town who most likely had the information that Jim was looking for.

Jim made the contact and soon enough the unmarked grave had been located.

I think it was the next year when Jim and I and our sister Sylvia took a field trip out there to look at all of the family places, focusing mostly on the Anderson farm and the Webster cemetery.  The Webster cemetery has most of the significant Anderson graves including Tom and Jim and Sylvia and Gene's mother Lillie and Lillie’s parents.  The cemetery is also the site of most of the significant Miller graves including Tom and Jim and Sylvia and Gene and Andy and Mark's father Thomas.  And our father Thomas’s parents and his Miller side grandparents.  Jim, Sylvia and I also made a side trip on a day of 100 degree temperatures so that Jim could show us the unmarked grave in the Spooner cemetery.

On that trip we discussed our feelings about the Spooner gravesite.  Even by then it had been 100 years since Grossvater was buried.  Whatever the most assuredly strong feelings from that earlier time that had left the grave unmarked we felt among us that after the passage of that much time that the grave should be marked.

Jim had gone to great lengths to locate the grave based on his wish to complete the historical record.

We all just felt that the next person attempting to complete that historical journey should not have to complete that one particular hoop by the happenstance of  bumping into a neighbor of the cemetery.  We wanted to do something if we could to make it easier.

We all felt that we should mark the grave and it became a recurrent theme discussed particularly between me and my brother on numerous occasions.

It came up all the time, we both felt it was something we should do.  It was just something we never actually got around to doing.  It was unfinished business.

Last summer he went out one day to play tennis and never came home.

Sylvia and I talked about this only a little bit before we both knew that this was a bit of unfinished business that we could finish.  We marked the grave.

Our brother Mark was out to the Spooner cemetery recently and provided this photo.

This next bit is quoted from Jim’s write up of his genealogy research:

"George Miller was born in France (probably the Alsace region) in February 1823.  He came to America on the ship Parachute, leaving Havre, France, and arriving in New York on May 18, 1828.  He was five.  The ship's passenger list shows a family group that included Jean Miller 35 (farmer), Jacon Miller 40, Marie Elis Miller 18, Marie Roni Miller 11, and George Miller 5."

I have a copy of that passenger list.  We are going with 1823 as year of birth.

We do not know his actual date of death but we do know from the cemetery records that he was buried in 1911.

105 years later and this business is finished.