Thursday was to be devoted to genealogy work. We started by going to city hall which by the way was built in 1885 and has a 5 story clock tower. It is red brick and has a couple of spires also. We found a woman in the planning office that drew us maps of where the many cemeteries are located. She gave us a name of the caretaker at the Aspen Grove cemetery which proved to be the best advice of the day. We found him working, but he went to the office with us. It was soon determined that none of the relatives were in that cemetery, but he had a file of index cards for the Ware Center cemetery. I would give him a last name and he would pull out the cards and let me find the ones that I was looking for. Armed with the lot and section numbers we drove the few miles to the Ware Center meeting house and cemetery. The Hoffmann relatives that probably helped build the structure and surely attended many meetings there. It was closed, but it would have been nice to sit and ponder that further.
We walked the short distance to the cemetery and begin looking. We found the Lewis lots first. Milton and Maria Lewis, Don’s great-great grandparents. Next to them are Milton’s parents, Abner and Eunice Lewis. Next was Maria’s parents Thomas and Susanna Snell.
David Grey and his wife Harriet Converse were the fourth graves that we found. I was particularly glad to find this one as there as been some confusion as to what Harriet’s last name was. Their daughter Sarah married Milton and Maria’s son William E. William and Sarah would be Don’s great grandparents. Later in the day, I began to wonder if Harriet Converse’s parents are also there. If time permits and we can find the caretaker, we might solve that mystery. We are very grateful to my friend Maggie for suggesting taking chalk to go over the engravings. Without it we would never have been able to read the stones. Jason and Ryan we are going to have a big box of chalk for you when we get home.
Feel very good about today. Tomorrow we are going to make a big color loop. The word out there is because of the lack of moisture this is not shaping up to be a Wow kind of color year and that is certainly what we have found also.