Cemetery walk

I love cemeteries.

And I often walk the pups in the cemetery across the road from our elementary school (odd placement, but then everything has to be somewhere). We have lived there long enough to recognize folks. It is our town now.

Today I am in another town - my hometown. We have been talking about our family and our history. We have talked about those we have found and cannot find. We have told stories, old and new (or at least new to some of us).

I have had time today and decided to try and find two of the lost ones. I found three.

One nice thing about a small town is that there is almost always someone who knows someone who can help you with a problem - plumbing, buying tractor tires, getting a refund from the local co-op or locating a grave. All problems can be solved with a few short phone calls.

I was directed to the treasurer of the local cemetery association. After a few minutes of explanation and small talk - she sounds the same as always (I have known her since I was a child growing up with her children) - she located the names I gave her and then found where they are on the plat. She gave me directions - north entrance. Drive to the back. On the left hand side look for "Tice" at the road on the left, no - right. "Tice" will be just behind the "Pools." Walk down that row towards the brush line and you will find them about halfway down.

"And where is Ira?" I asked.

 "Oh, he is there too. And Elma."

"Yes, his wife."

"But they are on either side of your great-grandparents. Well, this could be showing the wrong order of things."

"Or maybe they preferred it. You never know."

I drove to the city limits, turned left and then right into the north entrance. After driving to the back I parked at "Tice." The memories of the bearers of these names (and so many of the others) flow through my head. Mr. and Mrs. Tice were lovely people. Their younger daughter was a friend, a girl scout with my sister.

Half-way down the row were the stones. My great-grandfather and great-grandmother moved here from Indiana. He was a farmer and one of 14 children (including two sets of twins). They raised my grandmother here with her sisters and brother. We have a photo of my grandmother in her brother Ira's WWI army uniform. Both of them were full of fun.

Uncle Ira was on one side and his wife was, indeed, on the other side of his parents.

Uncle Ira loved a good joke. I could almost see his smiling face and hear a chuckle as I walked back to the car.