I write a weekly blog called Tombstone Tuesday.  http://tombstonetuesday.blog

It’s a pretty simple blog.  I look at the date for each Tuesday of the month at the beginning of the month. Then I look for someone who died on that day and I write about them as much or as little as I can find. I have been writing it for more than ten years..  At first I did not write weekly, I wrote sporadically but about six or seven years ago I decided to try to make an effort to write one each week.

I thought today I one pull one of my favorite early blogs and post it here.  I hope that you enjoy it.  I have loved cemeteries since I was a little girl. This is a post from November 9, 2009.  It was previously post on a Blogspot account before I changed to WordPress.

This is more of a general post because at that time I could not find anyone in my tree that had died on November 9. It is call “I love a Cemetery”

Charles Densmore – December 23, 1864 – January 4, 1943

Charles Densmore was sexton for the Woodlawn Cemetery in Marine City , Michigan for 18 years. I believe that I have acquired my love for cemeteries from my Great Grandpa Charles Densmore. He loved them and I love them!

When I was a little girl, I often visited our local rural Cemetery in Washington, Michigan.

As you can see from the Photo’s there are now house built all around it but when I was a girl it was surrounded by farm fields and 29 Mile Road was still a gravel road. You would see cows or sheep grazing with an occasional horse tossed in the mix. It was a peaceful place. I did not know anyone who was buried there but before long I knew them all.  It was an old pioneer cemetery and I was fascinated by it. I can still recall riding my bike down the gravel road as fast as I could. I would ride up the sloping entrance of the cemetery into the center of the graveyard, jumping off my bike and dropping it in the middle of the grass.

For the next 30 minutes or so I would wander the cemetery reading the names and dates on the gravestones. I knew that most years began with 18 instead of 19 so I knew they were really old. I was fascinated by them. In my childhood imagination, I would create thrilling stories about these people and their lives.

There was a Frost Family buried in the cemetery and I was sure that they could all write poetry like there famous relative, Robert Frost…

When I found a child, they would become my playmate. One day we might play marbles and the next it might be tag or hide and seek, hiding behind the tombstones…

 

A young woman would transform into a mother or a local farmer’s wife helping to milk cows, gathering eggs in her apron or hauling water to the kitchen…

 

When I saw a military stone, I would imagine soldiers in their uniforms marching off to war and fighting in battles.. This was long before I knew about the Civil War that the Northern boys were fighting the Southern boys…

Old men became like Grandpas letting you sit on their lap while they tell you about the old days, the really old days….

Old woman became Grandmas that let you help make cookies or pies and a little mess once in a while…

 

I wish I had written some of the stories down now, of course I was so young I was just learning how to write.  I came from a fairly large family and this was something I always did when I was alone.  It was not a conscious thing as I recall but in a large busy family each member needs some alone time and this was mine.

Some times it was fun to lie in the grass and watch the clouds as they formed, dissolved and reformed. I would see dogs chasing cats …or lions roaring or dolphins jumping as they formed from clouds which a few minutes later became a new shape that stimulates my young imagination. I would lay there with my friends who had been laying there long before me and have remained there long after I was gone…

When I retired and moved back to the Michigan, the state of my childhood, I visited my favorite cemetery.  It seemed smaller than I remember but still very special. I took photos of some of the tombstones. Some are old and hard to read.

Some people would think that this is all very strange  but there are very few places on earth that I like better than…….. a beautiful cemetery…

Happy Hunting,

Jan

#52Ancestorsin52Weeks

“When there is a Will” is the phrase for this week which make me want to write about Mary Florence White Boyer.

Mary Florence White Boyer was my second Great Grandmother. She was the daughter of William C. White and Phoebe Johnson.  She was born on September 4, 1860 in Thetford Center, Michigan.  She married Austin Levi Boyer on October 14, 1882 in Clio, Michigan.

This is a Boyer Family Gathering which likely took place in the fall of 1907. I wish I knew what the gathering was but I do not.  It appears the be all the Boyer children of Valentine and his wife, Nancy (Leet) Boyer and their families.

I can pin point the approximate year for several reasons.  Austin Boyer is standing on the porch at the top of the stairs with his daughter Mae Eveleen.  Mary Florence is standing to the right of her husband on the porch.   Austin Boyer died on the farm of a heart attack on May 27, 1908.  Mae Eveleen is my Great Grandmother. She has three children at the time of this photo. She is holding her third son, Wallace(1907), my Grandmother Lillian(1905) is standing in front of her and Lester(1903) her oldest son is standing in front of Mae on the steps below her.

At the time of his death, Austin and Mary Florence, owned a florist and green houses where they grew flowers which they sold out of a truck.  What does a widow do when she loses her husband in 1908 and has two young sons, Glenn who was twelve and Austin Rex who was six….?  “When there is a will” ….there is a way.  For the first four years after Austin’s death, Mary Florence continued to run the florist. It is my belief that at this time that George Stephen and Mae E. (Boyer) Losee assisted Mary Florence with the green houses and the florist.

Tragically, Mae Eveleen Boyer Losee died in February 13, 1914 of what appeared to have been a heart attack.  This must have been another huge blow to Mary Florence.  She had lost a son, Henry in 1901, her husband in 1908 and her daughter in 1914.

Mae Eveleen and Stephen Losee had five children ;  Lester (1903), Lillian (1905), Wallace (1907), Mary Florence (1911), Ernest (1913).   Mary Florence sold the florist and the greenhouses. She moved to Flint where she bought a boarding house.  She lived in several places in Flint but in 1915, she is living at 1339 Orchard.  She has all of Mae’s youngest children living with her.  Lester is living with his father and they lived in Gladwin where George Stephen had bought a farm.

“Where there is a will ” … there surely is a way….

By the 1920 Federal Census, Mae’s daughters, Lillian and Florence, are living full time with their Grandmother, Mary Florence. I have learned that this was very common for adolescent daughters of widowers to be raised by their Grandmothers.  Ernest lived for many years with Mary Florence  but by the 1920 Federal Census he was living with his father and his new wife, Pearl.  George and Pearl Delude married in 1918 when George  returned to Flint. He is working for the Auto Industry and it appears that Lester and his stepson, Gerald Delude are working there too.  A thirteen year old Wallace states that he is a Newsboy who delivers the daily newspapers while still attending school. (I thought it was awesome that he proudly stated that he was a “Newsboy” at thirteen.)

My Grandmother, Lillian,  would spend the rest of her adolescence living at Grandma Mary Florence’s Boarding house.  Lillian married Everett Smith on August 28,1923.  They had their first daughter, Lucile on October 29.1924.  Lillian and Everett had my father Harold Smith on August 30, 1928.

Mary Florence never learned to drive but she navigated the city of Flint by walking along the interurban train lines.  Lillian and Everett lived on Term Street in Burton, Michigan  and one of the interurban lines ran directly behind their neighborhood which Mary Florence used to visit her Granddaughter.  On the morning of September 8, 1928, Mary Florence set out to visit Lillian and Everett.  She would be meeting her newest Great Grandchild  Harold Smith for the first time.  Mary Florence was struck and killed by a train before arriving at her Granddaughter’s house.

For a woman in the early 1900 to remain independent after the death of her husband, is quite an achievement.  She ran a florist, greenhouses, boarding houses and raised grandchildren all alone.  That to me says ” When there is a will, there is a way!”.

Happy Hunting,

Jan

#52Ancestors