Hello friends, coming at you again with another post after a long pause. What can I say, Covid-19 brings out my writer’s block! I have several posts that I really hope I can someday (SOON) share with you, that I hope I can finish, but until then I have this Thrilling Tale of Adventure and Discovery. Follow along with me and my brother Aidan as we go on a journey to find a bunch of graves: it’s the Grand Cemeteries Tour of 2020.
The Background
Before we jump right in to this story, let me give you some background information. My family is from Kansas. (Or about as from Kansas as a bunch of European immigrants can be.) My parents are from Kansas, my grandparents are from Kansas, my great-grandparents are from Kansas. Three-quarters of my great-great-greatgrandparents are buried in Kansas.
Now, when I say Kansas, I don’t mean spread across the state. I don’t mean just Eastern Kansas, and I don’t mean just North Central Kansas (which, to be clear, is a subset of Eastern Kansas). I mean within this box:
Ten cemeteries are within that box, containing a confirmed 100% of three generations (grand to great-great grandparents), 85% of four generations (adding g-g-g-grandparents), and 51% of five generations (adding g-g-g-g-grandparents). I know this because staring me down above my quarantine digs desk is the family tree that my Grandpa printed out for me years ago. So naturally, when we had a spot of unseasonably cool August weather, I decided to go on a Grand Cemeteries Tour.
This isn’t the first Grand Cemeteries Tour we’ve done here. Mom, Colin and I undertook such a tour back in 2003, but we didn’t wait for cool weather for that one: instead, we baked in 107°F Classic Summer™ heat. Aidan and I were more weenies than that this time.
The Cemeteries Tour
Welcome to August 3, 2020. Coronavirus still reigns supreme, schools haven’t figured out how to reopen, people are still trying to socially distance, and the month has entered with flooding and temperatures in the 70s. There isn’t much to do safely besides staying home or going outside to uncrowded spaces. And what’s more uncrowded than hanging out with the dead? So, faced with nice weather, I plotted a route and convinced Aidan to leave his attic heights and accompany me. We loaded up on water (and tea) and headed out bright and early technically before noon.
Swede Creek
First stop was Swede Creek Cemetery, on top of a hill with a beautiful view of the Big Blue River valley. It’s a small, well-maintained cemetery, down the (gravel) road from the strangely large Swede Creek Church. We arrived to a lovely cool breeze and scattered cumulus clouds, and all of our ancestors waiting for us right in the front row.
A quick side note here: I am writing this largely for my family (hi family!) so I will include all the people and their info. If you’re a friend or passerby, I won’t be offended if you skip these parts. But I’ll know. If you do want to try to follow along, there’s a color coded family tree at the bottom of this post!
Swede Creek has members of my maternal Grandmother’s family. Heinrich Philipp and Bernhardine Oberhelman Richter are to the north of the entrance, while Clamor (Aidan’s favorite name) and Anna Marie Boehne Johnsmeyer and C. A. and Eleanor Boehne are to the south. I noticed later that Bernhardine’s parents are possibly also there, but I haven’t yet done the research to confirm that.
Fancy Creek Randolph
Fancy Creek Randolph Cemetery contains many of the graves relocated from the Old Randolph, Randolph, and Fancy Creek cemeteries when Tuttle Creek Dam was constructed. At about five times the size of Swede Creek, it took us a little bit longer to find our people, and the flat scenery right off the highway was less enjoyable for the search. However, Charles and Cathrina Gustafson were a fairly easy find in the center only a few rows back. It took longer to find Erick Anderson. A bumblebee helped me search, but Aidan finally spotted him farther back (without apid help), buried with his second wife. His first wife Gustafva Louisa is buried in Illinois.
May Day
Just west of the bustling May Day metropolis lies the equally bustling May Day Cemetery. The Richters have colonized the front right corner, with Fred and Amanda Johnsmeyer Richter and Elmer and Gladys Anderson Richter holding down the front row, and Grandpa Ron Branfort straight behind. His permanent headstone is now up, and Aidan and I agreed that it’s a very nice monument. Rounding out the Richter fort are Vance and Andrea Richter right behind Grandpa, and Jacalyn Richter next to Elmer and Gladys (Grandma’s brother and sisters-in-law, respectively).
Goshen Central
Next stop was Goshen Central, the cemetery that no one has heard of. (And by no one I mean that neither Dad nor Grandma had heard of it, which tells me everything.) While it is another small cemetery on a hill, it unfortunately only offered us views of corn, and the breeze only brought a strong smell of cattle from the large feedlot at the bottom of the hill. However, Zillah Craft Lamb was very easy to find with her (relatively) huge monument right off the path. What appears to be her original stone, labeled only “Mother”, was sitting on top of her big stone. We checked around without success for Charles Lamb. Mom told me later that he left Zillah and the children and went who knows where. In retrospect that gives some fun poignancy to Zillah’s massive and “Mother” stones — or maybe that’s just me.
We then became very familiar with the other 145 graves because it took us a comically long time to find Henry and Ann Faulkner Craft. Aidan claims he missed them because he was looking for a “Kraft”. I have no such excuse. They’re in a family plot just a few spots down from Zillah, with a stone almost as large as hers that says CRAFT. It was too obvious, I think. They’re buried along with Henry’s second wife, Barbara.
Mistakes
No, not a cemetery named Mistakes, unfortunately. It was at this point that we made our two big mistakes of the tour. (Ok yes they were my mistakes, Aidan was uninvolved in the mistaking.) The next stop on my list, and thus on my Google map, was Pleasant Hill. However, what Google recognizes as Pleasant Hill is actually Swedish Pleasant Hill, which is presumably entirely Swedish instead of merely mostly Swedish like not-Swedish Pleasant Hill. Swedish Pleasant Hill was only about 300 feet out of the way to our next stop, though, so it was no great loss. I rerouted the later path slightly to include the real Pleasant Hill, and we proceeded on to our next stop.
However. The astute readers among you might now be saying to yourselves wait, that’s only one mistake, isn’t it? Yes. Indeed. The second mistake is that really this stop should have been to Parallel Cemetery. I hadn’t included it initially because I thought it was closer to Clifton, and therefore farther than I thought we wanted to drive. I didn’t bother looking it up on a map. Turns out, it’s only about five miles up Highway 15 from where we would have come out from Goshen Central, and six miles straight up from Swedish Pleasant Hill.
But hey, live and learn to not do your planning late the night before.
Greenwood
Oh, Greenwood. With over 10k residents, this was by far the largest cemetery we visited. And fun fact, that also makes it well over twice as large as Clay Center, the the city it serves. Thankfully, Greenwood is divided up into three Additions, each of which are subdivided into Blocks, all clearly labelled. At least, as long as you know that there isn’t a non-Addition part of the cemetery. That part caused us a little confusion, as Blocks 1–18 of Addition 1 are labelled only with little wood blocks on top of sign posts with the Block number, in contrast to Blocks 19+ and the Additions 2 and 3 Blocks, which have fancy proper signs that include the Addition number. Anyway.
Thankfully again, we had the Block level locations for our familial residents. We still had to find the Blocks themselves, since the layout is not strictly logical, and we didn’t have a map. Nor did we notice the map by the entrance that Mom repeatedly told us about afterwards. We use technology, Mom.
Good thing mosquitoes (probably) don’t transmit Covid-19.
Our first finds were George and Zella Porter Branfort, in Addition 1 – Block 19 (1–19). Aidan was better than me at spotting the family stones; I kept focusing more on the individual stones. Next we went over to 1–21 and found (Louis) Ray and Jessie Lamb Branfort. While we were still trying to figure out if the Blocks labelled with only a number were indeed part of Addition 1, we backtracked a bit to 3–10 where Grandpa Brandy and Grandma Annie (Elwood and Ann Anderson Branfort) are.
Having then exhausted our obvious targets, we braved our way back to Block 8 to see if 1–8 people were there. Block 8 is unfortunately one of the larger blocks, in an L-shape around Block 5 (logical). And, thanks to the wet summer, the mosquitoes were out in droves. We searched through without luck, so I moved to Block 5 to see if 1–5 were there. Thankfully, I found Noyes J. and Martha Main Lamb there, and shortly thereafter Aidan spotted William Walter and Martha Ann Sammons Baker.
Fun fact, mosquitoes could bite through my pants.
Where in the World is Thomas Warner?
Having found the Bakers and Lambs, we continued the search for Thomas and Libby Warner. According to both Greenwood’s website and findagrave.com, Thomas Warner should have been in 1–8 (plot 57), but there was no sign of him. Findagrave lists Libby in the same spot, but Greenwood has no record of her. Grandpa Ron’s records put them in 1–8, but he also put dashes by their location, so he might also have failed to find them. The closest find we had was a small (child’s?) memorial for a James Warner in the southwest corner of Block 8. While the rest of the block is fairly full, there was some empty space around his grave, but no sign of any old or fallen monuments.
Eventually we gave up and let the mosquitoes (and the sun, I was getting burnt) chase us away. We stopped at Frances and Minnie Warner’s plot in 1–31 to check if there were any Thomases hiding there, but no luck. We left the cemetery and drove by Grandma Brandy and Grandma Annie’s old house on our way through town.
Ebenezer
Similar to Swede Creek, Ebenezer Cemetery is a safe distance from the church… as we discovered. It’s also a nice manageable size, with a country breeze to help mitigate the mosquito flocks. We quickly found George and Rosa (Rosine) Reber Schurle, John and Katarina Schurle, and William and Lydia Heilman Schurle along the center path. Ivan and Edna Rose Schurle Rosenow and Ferdinand (Ferd) and Anna Louise (Lizzie) Kuehn Rosenow are on the north side. They have a distinctive reddish marble Rosenow family stone that Aidan and I both admired (not just because it says Rosenow).
After a bit more searching, we found Magdalena Heckel and David and Rosa Christine Wieland Heilman back towards the front. Magdalena (or, as Aidan called her, Grandma Maggie) is buried next to (we think) her second husband, Mike Heckel. Christina “Hileman” (typo?), aged 14, is on her other side, but there’s no sign of a Papa Heilman. Add him to the research pile.
Pleasant Hill (the real one)
With the addition of the real Pleasant Hill, our route now went through Green, KS. We admired Grandpa Ray’s old Skelly station (now a Kramer Oil with a modern pump, very fancy!) on the way past. Green Cafe was closed, possibly for Covid, although I’m always impressed that it’s still going.
First find in Pleasant Hill was Charles and Christina Hanson Bergstrom, right near the north entrance. Olof Bergstrom is a few plots down from them, no wife mentioned. Then we walked over to Grandpa and Grandpa Rosenow’s grave on the south side (Don and Phyllis Rosenow). Aidan and I theorized that Grandpa’s lack of Nordic ancestry kept them out of the heart of the cemetery. (Definitely not that the middle was already full.) We straightened the stone dove on Grandma’s side of the headstone, then kept searching, as much as you can search a 200-resident cemetery. We found Albert Daniel and Effie Gustafson Bergstrom and Leonard and Belle Chaffee, with Eulah Bergstrom Chaffee next to them. Eulah’s headstone was almost swallowed up by the peonies on her grave.
Lasita
That’s pronounced with a long i, if you’re wondering. Just two blocks south of Pleasant Hill, Aidan barely had time to start the music back up before we arrived. We quickly found Robert Charles and Ann Shields Chaffee, although the peonies were also eating his headstone. Miner Allen and Cora I. Chaffee were nearby. Lasita only had the vaguest suggestion of a driving path and no room on the road margins to park, but I think we got through without driving over anyone. (We didn’t. I used Google Maps satellite images to find the path.)
Leonardville
Last stop within the Sandcrawler box was the Leonardville Cemetery. While not large, it’s still about four times the size of the country cemeteries we had been at, divided into four sections. Unfortunately we didn’t know what section(s) we wanted. Unlike the torturous Greenville search, though, there was a breeze to keep off the mosquitoes, and the temperature had fallen slightly. I could happily sip my still-hot tea while walking. Before we could get to searching, though, we were distracted by a hilarious-sounding bird that was yelling at us. We guessed it was a mockingbird relative.
Aidan found John (Jonas) Hanson in the third section, buried with his second wife Karin Nilsdotter. Karin Olsdotter Hanson died back in Sweden. John and Lena Hanson (born Jonasdotter) Anderson were nearby.
Eureka Valley
Aidan and I decided we were still feeling alright, so we make a slight detour on our way back into town to visit Eureka Valley Cemetery, just north of the Manhattan airport. It took us a couple tries to find it, since Google was unaware of it, findagrave.com lists its address as that of a house down the road from it, and it sits a few hundred feet back from the road, behind an old schoolhouse. It’s also easily the smallest cemetery we visited by population, although not by area.
Grandma told me later that when she and Grandpa first visited it, it was completely overgrown and unkept, and he contacted the Riley County services in charge of cemetery upkeep to let them know. Since then, it has been maintained, although the years of neglect appear to have taken their toll. It is about 90% empty space, with several graves only vaguely suggested by worn lumps of non-native stone. Aidan and I wondered if there might be more graves that have completely disappeared.
Nonetheless, we found Josephus and Lucy Ann Warner in the northwest corner, buried with their daughter Mary Eveline (age 8). Their stone looks relatively new, flat on the ground behind what looks like the base of their original stone. We checked the rest of the cemetery for any rogue Thomas or Libby Warners, but no luck. There is another Lucy A. Warner on the other side of the cemetery, buried with Gerard Warner (age 1, “son of J.D. and A. Warner”, born after Lucy A.’s death) and Cora Richtmyer (age 16, “dau of A. and A. Richtmyer”). I have no idea what, if any, relation they are, to us or to each other.
Supplementary Materials
Most of my research so far has been done using Grandpa Ron’s family tree and findagrave.com, with additional support provided by asking Mom and Dad questions. Grandma has since given me a tub of Grandpa’s research, so I have that to go through now. I have already checked it for hidden Thomases, to no avail.
I took with us my journal with the color-coded tree I drew up and the big tree from Grandpa (with my additions). We also brought paper and rubbing crayons, but most the graves were either legible or too worn for rubbings. We took some rubbings anyway. Aidan provided mood music for the drive.
I put together a Google album of headstone photos. If you’re interested, message me your gmail and I can give you access.
Anyway that was our Grand Cemeteries Tour.