Thursday, May 03, 2012

Exploring Family Gravestones

Mary Linda and Eleanor by midgefrazel
Mary Linda and Eleanor, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.
When planned, I envisioned a lovely May morning with warm sunshine for our cemetery walk with Eleanor and her niece Mary Linda. They are my husband's cousins. It was drizzling and chilly. I am still disappointed in the weather.

Eleanor had not seen her husband's gravestone, supplied by the military and Mary Linda was confused by the grouping of the headstones around the monument for the Hyde/Merrow/Dunbar Smallidge families. Eleanor talked to my husband Steve while I pointed out each headstone to Mary Linda. We ended at her grandparents. The headstone have just initials and no dates. The women's initials do not include the maiden names!

We met them at this section of the Maplewood Cemetery. Eleanor is a bit unsteady on her feet so her walker came with them. We encouraged her to get out of the car to look at her husband's military gravestone and then Mary Linda drove her on the grass (on the obvious path for cars) up to where I pointed out the rest of the gravestones of the Hyde family that no one was sure where they were.

The reason no one was sure was because the side of the monuments that could be seen were the wrong facing surnames. The Hyde name was on the other side of the stones!

After this, we drove to Southborough Rural to show Eleanor the gravestones of Abraham and Eleanor (Parementer) Hyde and His parents Ebenezer and Rebeckah (Fay) Hyde. She could see them from the car. I would have liked it if she could have walked up to them but I did spend all weekend and this week, printing them out so she could look at where they were and "take them home" to study.

Eleanor's mind is very sharp. She will devour the printouts.

No comments: