10/17/25 Thank you for all the prayers. They are working and helping. The type of leukemia I have is called CLL. No cure but very slow in advancing. Right now I am doing okay. I am still able to get out and work on Find A Grave which I am thankful for. Again thank you for all of the prayers.

5/3/25 I have been diagnosed with leukemia. I am not quite sure how my days going forward will be affected but I am determined to continue my work on Find A Grave. This project has become so very important to me. Any photos I post on Find A Grave are here to be used by anyone as long as it is not for profit in any way. Please say a prayer for me!!

6/24/2024 Today is a milestone. I began volunteering for Find A Grave in June of 2012. Also today is my birthday and I turn 70 years old. In the past 12 years I have created 35,175 memorials and also posted 161,460 photo's. I am looking forward to what I hope is another twelve years with Find A Grave. I believe in this project and want to help as much as I can. This website is worth every hour I have donated to it. Thank you to all of the other volunteers who are helping. Your efforts make all the difference.

3/19/2024 I am seeing several photos posted to memorials that are really not very pleasing to look at. The headstone may be overgrown with weeds and/or the photographer has not taken the time to sweep the dirt and debris from the stone. When I come across these types of photo's I will go ahead and post the photo I have taken. I put effort into cleaning up the headstone prior to taking the photo so that it is presentable. I do not apologize for wanting the memorials I am involved with to look the best that they can look. This is a recording for history!!

I started researching my family in 1996. A truly wonderful experience. The more I learn the more I realize I do not know. Finding the resting places of my ancestors is an important part of my search. I enjoy photography so photographing grave markers while out just fell into place. I enjoy helping others so fulfilling a photo request is a very special thing.

"I am because you were."

I thank my God upon every remembrance of you!

This is inscribed on the headstone of Wilmer D. Poe who is buried in Lakewood Memorial Park in Hughson, California.

If you speak their name, they live.

Below is a definition of what a cemetery truly is. I originally came across this posted on the bio page for Find A Grave contributor--Cristy: ID #46780434. It was written by her dad's cousin, Mary Lou Brannon.

So folks, now I know why I spend the time I do In my local cemeteries. Thank you Mary Lou for writing this wonderful piece and Thank You Cristy for sharing it.

THIS IS A CEMETERY

Lives are Commemorated - Deaths are

Recorded - Families are Reunited -

Memories are Made Tangible - and Love is

Undisguised. This is a Cemetery!

Communities accord Respect, Families

Bestow Reverence, Historians seek

Information and Our Heritage is thereby

Enriched.

Testimonies of Devotion, Pride and

Remembrance are carved in stone to pay

Warm tribute to Accomplishments and to

The Life - not Death - of a Loved One.

The Cemetery is Homeland for Family

Memorials that are a sustaining source of

Comfort to the Living.

A Cemetery is a History of People - a

Perpetual Record of Yesterday and a

Sanctuary of Peace and Quiet Today. A

Cemetery exists because Every Life is Worth

Loving and Remembering - Always!

Author - Mary Lou Brannon(my dads cousin)