Bio
My family tree includes the following ancestral names: Lines, Maxey, Casey, Allen, Johnson, Morrow, Ensley, Sewell, Howarth, Taylor, Quincy, Nickelson, Ela, Chase, Kinsman, Thayer, Kadlec, LaMere, Wolford, Bellrichard, Atchison, DuCharme, Nydl, Michal and Miller. My current genealogical research is focused on Jefferson County, Illinois as I am descended from the Allen, Maxey and Casey pioneer families.
I enjoy connecting families on Find A Grave as it helps their descendants. No matter how brief or how long our ancestors were on this earth, their lives mattered.
Some of the memorials in my care are unrelated to me, but are precious friends. I am deeply grateful to the people who have transferred them. As another grave manager said in her bio: "Frankly, I don't understand those of you who cling to memorials of people you never met. Someday, someone else will be managing all of our memorials. I would be touched if a cousin, friend, or more distant descendant would want to manage mine. Why a stranger would refuse a transfer request is beyond me. What matters is that someone can manage the memorial and care for the memory better than the individual who created it." Kindness goes a long way.
At such time as I become a fallen graver, my sister Proud Missourian will take over all of my memorials.
"Genealogy begins as an interest, becomes a hobby, continues as an avocation and in the last stages, is an incurable disease."
Author Unknown
"We actually don't fear death. We fear that no one will notice our absence, that we will disappear without a trace". (unknown)
"I find most people spend too much time living as if they're never going to die."
~ Edward Albee (1928-2016)
The Ancestor
Your tombstone stands among the rest; neglected and alone.
The name and date are chiseled out on polished, marble 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 how you lived and loved, I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot and come to visit you.
~ Walter Butler Palmer (1868-1932)
Written in 1906 while he was visiting the grave of his great-grandfather.
My family tree includes the following ancestral names: Lines, Maxey, Casey, Allen, Johnson, Morrow, Ensley, Sewell, Howarth, Taylor, Quincy, Nickelson, Ela, Chase, Kinsman, Thayer, Kadlec, LaMere, Wolford, Bellrichard, Atchison, DuCharme, Nydl, Michal and Miller. My current genealogical research is focused on Jefferson County, Illinois as I am descended from the Allen, Maxey and Casey pioneer families.
I enjoy connecting families on Find A Grave as it helps their descendants. No matter how brief or how long our ancestors were on this earth, their lives mattered.
Some of the memorials in my care are unrelated to me, but are precious friends. I am deeply grateful to the people who have transferred them. As another grave manager said in her bio: "Frankly, I don't understand those of you who cling to memorials of people you never met. Someday, someone else will be managing all of our memorials. I would be touched if a cousin, friend, or more distant descendant would want to manage mine. Why a stranger would refuse a transfer request is beyond me. What matters is that someone can manage the memorial and care for the memory better than the individual who created it." Kindness goes a long way.
At such time as I become a fallen graver, my sister Proud Missourian will take over all of my memorials.
"Genealogy begins as an interest, becomes a hobby, continues as an avocation and in the last stages, is an incurable disease."
Author Unknown
"We actually don't fear death. We fear that no one will notice our absence, that we will disappear without a trace". (unknown)
"I find most people spend too much time living as if they're never going to die."
~ Edward Albee (1928-2016)
The Ancestor
Your tombstone stands among the rest; neglected and alone.
The name and date are chiseled out on polished, marble 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 how you lived and loved, I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot and come to visit you.
~ Walter Butler Palmer (1868-1932)
Written in 1906 while he was visiting the grave of his great-grandfather.
