I am the daughter of Donald Salmons& Joanelle Shapley Hall. I was born & raised in Sedalia, Mo. I am a daughter, wife mother, and a gamma, Family is a big part of my life, and learning things about my Ancestors and keeping their memories alive is important to me. One of my many passions in life is Photography, and going to cemeteries and visiting graves of the unknown and forgotten. Ever since I was a small girl I have enjoyed walking through the cemeteries looking at graves, and wondering who these folks were, and what their life was like.


A poem to honor one´s ancestors...


your tombstone stands among the rest;
Neglected and alone.
The name and date are chiseled out
on polished, marbled stone.
It reaches out to all who care
It is too late to mourn.
You did not know that I exist
you died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you
in flesh, in blood, in bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
entirely not our own.
Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago
spreads out among the ones you left
who would have loved you so.
I wonder if you lived and loved,
I wonder if you knew
that someday I would find this spot,
and come to visit you.
Author Unknown


We can't know why
the lily has so brief a time to bloom
in the warmth of sunlight's kiss upon its face,
Before it folds its fragrance in
and bids the world good-night
to rest its beauty in a gentler place.
But we can know that nothing that is loved is ever lost,
and no one who has ever touched a heart
can really pass away,
because some beauty lingers on
in each memory of which they've been a part!
By:Ellen Brenneman