Virgil E. Veal

Virgil E. Veal 
(1935-2011)

One day, this man named Virgil Veal and his wife Annie contacted me and told me they knew where my great-grandparents, David Aiken and Annie Beveridge were buried! 

I was so excited because I had not found them buried at River Bend Cemetery in RI. 

Virgil and Annie traveled to the cemetery that week and took photos of all the gravestones for me. I would NEVER have thought to look in Georgia. However, my grandmother's sister, their daughter, was named Georgina. I didn't know that they retired to Georgia where they had lived in the early years of coming to America and loved it there.

They lived there because of the lovely red GRANITE that is mined there for buildings and gravestones.

Virgil and I spent several months working together, piecing the children of David and Annie together, worrying over a family member that did not fit in and solving that mystery.

I wondered why he stopped answering my emails but I can be quite relentless so I decided I might be annoying. Finally, another researcher who was working with me, searched for his name and came up with an obituary. I was sad.

I never considered that he passed away. In the obit, the name of the cemetery was mentioned so I put in a Find-a-Grave  request for his grave marker. It was filled this week and the photographer gave me permission to use it in my blog.

Virgil's wife Annie is still living so I didn't post that side of the marker but you can see it and the full obit at Find-a-Grave. Thanks so much SWM volunteer at Find-a-Grave.