Midwest Cemeteries

As Drew and I traveled back home from Minneapolis this week, our route from Minnesota to Virginia included two of my "bucket list" cemeteries. It was moving experience to stand at the graves of the ancestors that I have come to know through my research.

Ada Crofford

The first cemetery we visited was "Mound Prairie Cemetery" in Twin Lakes, near Kenosha on the southeastern corner of Wisconsin by the shore of Lake Michigan. We approached the cemetery on a long, lonely country road in the middle of cornfields that stretched as far as we could see.  Not too far away is a beautiful lake that appears to be in the middle of a resort community. 

Mound Prairie Cemetery is just ahead at the line of trees.

We turned into the cemetery, drove toward the back and parked. Methodically, we walked up and down the rows of gravestones looking for Ada Crofford's. Ada was my maternal great grandmother. I knew a lot about her life and this was a big moment for me. After a while, Drew called me over. Ada's stone was barely readable, but there she was next to Robert Luke, her son-in-law, and two of the Luke grandchildren, Catherine and Lowell.  

I stood for a few long minutes at this grave.

Looking back toward the entrance to the cemetery. Ada's grave
can be seen along the road to the right, beside the graves
of the Luke family.

My thoughts of Ada as I stood there were to marvel at how she lived in so many places and lived such a rough pioneer life only to end up in this place that had nothing to do with her life. She was born in New York. She had lived in Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, Missouri, and Illinois. Then finally buried in Wisconsin. Her very life and death represents the restless spirit of the Old West. 

Drew and I searched in vain for my great aunt Miriam's grave. Miriam was my grandfather's sister. I have memories of receiving regular gifts in the mail as a child from Aunt Miriam. She was married first to Robert Luke, then to Mr. Darrow. We walked around for a good 30-45 minutes looking at every gravestone. I came to the conclusion that maybe she wasn't buried there after all. After I got home, I did some checking and found that she is buried there and we just missed it somehow. Here is a picture of her gravestone that I found online:

From Findagrave.com

I learned from Mom that Miriam's first husband Robert Luke was killed at age 40 by a train that hit his car. After further searching, I learned that two of Miriam's daughters, Emma and Catherine, twins, were also killed in separate automobile accidents. [Mom kept a gold bracelet that had belonged to her cousins.] Catherine and Robert are buried next to Ada at Twin Lakes. There was a news article about the three family tragedies:

John Dillingham

The next cemetery we visited was in Liberty, Indiana. We stopped first at the Brown museum in an old house in nearby Chesterton. The ladies who worked there were enthusiastic and brought out many binders of documentation on my ancestor, John Dillingham, who was an original settler in the area. We set out for Liberty, traveled down more country roads and almost missed the tiny plot of graves. The Dillingham monuments stood tall among the other worn headstones in the tiny family cemetery. A power substation was built next to the plot. 

From behind the cemetery looking toward the road.

Olcott, John's son by his first wife, Clarissa.
Olcott had traveled with John from Ohio to settle in Indiana.

Standing next to John Dillingham's gravestone.
Hannah's memorial is on the other side of the same
monument.

Later, a fellow relative in the Dillingham family (Cole) sent me a photo of something I missed seeing... the house of Olcott Dillingham, son of John Dillingham. It was right behind the cemetery but seemed like private property so I hadn't explored it. John Dillingham, my 3Xgg, probably lived in this house at the end of his life. Amazing to imagine!