Today was v. small-town-lifey, and mostly consisted of visiting cemeteries. I didn't roll out of bed until eleven, but I suppose that's to be expected since I drove so much yesterday. I showered, put on grave-visitin' clothes (not really - shorts and a tank top, since it was 80+ degrees when we started), and made myself some eggs for breakfast/lunch. My dad had a checkup this morning (and everything looked good), so when they got home from that, my dad ate lunch with me while my mom sorted through her stash of grave decorations and organized what we were taking and what we were leaving in the closet. Then we loaded up the truck and headed out on the rounds.
For family members buried only in our county, Google Maps indicates that we drove ~52 miles (not including the slight detour to a job site where my dad's crew has been working, and into town to get groceries). First up was Allerton, which is only a mile from us, where we decorated my granddad's grave and also put flowers on my grandma's parents' and sister's graves. I also took a picture of the tombstone of Doc Duden, one of my first ancestors in the county, who was born in 1830 and lived until 1919. Then, we drove through the gravel backroads to Shriver Cemetery, outside what used to be the town of Harvard (one of many towns in the county which no longer exists in either legality or practicality), to visit Uncle Ervin, the dearly departed spouse of my Great Aunt Leila.
After Shriver, we drove to Seymour (a town which has certainly seen better days), where the bulk of my mom's relatives are buried. Gram and Grandpa Holder are there, as are a couple sets of her grandparents, two more great-uncles (Uncle Pat - married to Lucile, and Uncle Harold - married to Irma), and, sadly, my sister's first husband. We also inspected the very old, very interesting headstone for Artiemacy Riggs (1841-1912), which is stone carved to look like a treestump.
Post caffeine break at the local convenience store, we made the long trek north to Confidence, a tiny, tiny unincorporated town in the northeast corner of the county. There are only a few houses left there, but they have a relatively large cemetery, with an older section on one side of the pavement and a newer section on the other [linguistics lesson: "the pavement" here means a paved road, which is a big deal when most of the roads are gravel]. The older section is v. rarely visited, it seems; other than the graves we left flowers at, there was only one other grave in the whole section that had something on it. When we got there, we had to wait out a thunderstorm; we couldn't wait long enough and still got a little wet, but at least we didn't get drenched even if the sudden drop to 60 degrees and rainy wasn't pleasant in my tank top/shorts combo. At Confidence, we decorated my mom's dad's parents, grandparents, and a man named Greenbury Owen, a Civil War veteran who I believe was his dad's maternal grandfather (I kind of lost track).
After all that fun and excitement, we drove by my dad's latest project site (a bunch of houses near Lake Rathbun in the easternmost part of the county), then came home, ate supper (chili, in honor of the cold snap), and watched some fine CBS programming. I also wrote in my journal and did a bit of work, but not enough to signify. So, I suppose I should go to sleep so I can accomplish something tomorrow -- goodnight!
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