I am interested in Genealogy, and researching local/military history. I am also an active member on Ancestry.com. Please feel free to use any of my photos for noncommercial use in family trees, etc.

Note: I am happy to transfer any of the memorials I manage to their existing family members. Just drop me a note.

DEAR ANCESTOR

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 and blood and 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