My Trails into the Past

In 1988, we attended a Gorrell family reunion in Odessa, Missouri. It was a three-day affair, the first day was at the Senior Center in Odessa and the following days were held at my father-in-law's cousin, Linnie Oma Hackley's home. Those invited were the descendants of Amos Gorrell and Catharine Shotts. They had six children, four who had offspring. It was the grandchildren who arranged the reunion. My husband and I flew in and stayed with Linnie Oma's son, John, and his wife. Most of the family attended the first day, where they roasted a whole pig and had a group photo taken. There was a huge family tree on the wall and a booklet made for each of us to take. I really hadn't started doing genealogy at this time, so purely missed out on asking questions of family. On Sunday of the three-day weekend, a group set out to Blackwater, Missouri, to look at the land that Amos Gorrell owned and farmed. There was some discussion about where it was exactly by a couple of the gra...

Both of my husband’s paternal great-grandparents, Fred Davey and Matilda Wollenweber Davey are buried in unmarked graves. Fred was buried in 1915 at Odd Fellows Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. I have his grave location and in the summer of 1996 on my way to a model railroad convention, I visited the cemetery. I walked up and down the avenue where he was supposed to be, but did not find him. There was no office open on Sunday, so I left disappointed. After I got home, I sent a letter to the cemetery and they verified there was no tombstone. Along with the reply were brochures to purchase a tombstone. His space is still free of a marker and I took no photo. Years later, while on vacation, we had a chance to stop by Park Cemetery in Carthage, Missouri, where Matilda Davey was buried in 1885. This time I was able to visit the cemetery office and once the woman helping me found her in their files, she got all excited. She then took us out to the gravesite. There we saw only grass. ...

This is my third year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. In the spring of 2015, my husband and I made our first trip to Arkansas to visit his cousin’s husband, who lived in Hot Springs. Since Hot Springs was so close to Conway in Faulkner County, I planned a three day trip to Conway and Little Rock where I would conduct research in the local museum, courthouse, recorder’s office, university library, and the state archives. The highlight of the trip was visiting the eight cemeteries located in Conway and the outskirts. I thank my husband for being so patient, first for trying to find the very small, old cemeteries on narrow country roads, and second for helping me find the various tombstones to photograph. We had no maps and only names and dates to search for. ...

This is my second year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow . I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past . I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. My first visit I remember to a cemetery was the old cemetery at the Columbia State Historic Park in Columbia, California, that we visited on an 8th grade field trip. It was an informal visit, just a bunch of us wandering around looking at the oldest dates we could find. Next visit was during the funeral of my grandfather, Tom Johnston, Jr. at Oakmont Cemetery in Lafayette, California in 1973. I don’t have much memory of the time at the grave site, but do remember the funeral and his open casket. I was a bit startled by it as it was supposed to be closed. Once I started doing genealogy research in the 1990s, I made the effort to visit cemeteries. I revisited my grandfather’s plot and took photos of his...