Paying respect to my East Texas ancestors

The Way I See It


 

 

On my way to visit my friends Judy and Jerry in Oklahoma, I planned a stop for a quick visit with one of my cousins, Edith, in Fairfield. She is actually my mother’s first cousin, so I guess that would make her my first cousin, once removed. She is also my mom’s step sister-in-law. I’ll explain … when my grandmother remarried, she happened to marry Edith’s father-in-law. I assure you, our family tree forks!

I briefly got to see two more cousins, but my main reason was to go to the cemetery to check on a few things. Creepy? Maybe, but there was a bit of unfinished business – 15 years later. You see, my grandmother, MawMaw, passed away in 2003. Shortly after that my mother – her daughter – was in and out of the hospital until her death in 2005. I wanted to see if the date of death was ever etched in MawMaw’s headstone.

Edith and I drove to Kirvin, population 107, to confirm my concern – it had not been done. A visit to the local funeral home and the date should be added soon. He apologized in advance because he didn’t know when it would be done. I assured him that it was fine – obviously we had not been in a rush.

Would anyone really care if it had never been done? Probably not, but I feel some sense of satisfaction that it is scheduled. Plus, I got to have a good visit with family. We also drove to another cemetery a few miles away where my great-grandparents, great aunts, great uncles are also buried. Walking around the grave sites of family members brought up conversations that I would have never had and you can learn so much from visiting cemeteries. For example, I always thought my great Aunt Irene’s last name was Welch. It is Welsh. My whole life I had their name wrong!

The way I see it, while a day trip to a cemetery may not be a “fun” time, to me it was rewarding and brought back some memories as well as sparking conversation about my East Texas relatives.

SUE BROWN is a columnist of the Pleasanton Express. Contact her at psuebrown@gmail.com.

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