Grandma and Cemeteries

As if growing up with a genealogy Mom wasn't enough, my maternal grandmother enjoyed going to cemeteries. She and Grandpa lived in York, Nebraska for many years. That's in the eastern part of the state and west of Lincoln.

If Grandma knew we were coming for a visit, and it wasn't winter, she would almost always have a cemetery she wanted us to visit. Sometimes they were only visible from the gravel road, far too difficult to walk up to. Sometimes they were churchyard cemeteries and sometimes they were cemeteries at little towns. She always found them. Then we would visit the cemetery in York where she would have us drive past numerous graves of relatives.

One time Grandma was very excited to show us a "new" cemetery. Well, it was new to Mom and I'm not sure how Grandma figured out where it was located. Grandma put on a long sleeve shirt to protect her arms from bugs and briars and then donned her big straw hat. You could spot her a long ways off in what Mom called her "cemetery garb."

Off we went to the Lincoln Creek Cemetery in York County. It is a pretty cemetery and not difficult to reach and walk around in. Mom had been looking for the grave of Dad's great, great grandfather, Henry Eberhart. He actually died in 1878 in Kansas, but all the family had been living in a around York County, Nebraska. Grandma walked around and around in one area of the cemetery, stopped and said, "This is where he's buried." There was no stone, no nothing.

Later Mom found a plat map showing the Henry had actually purchased lots in that cemetery before his death in 1878. So...who knows...maybe he's buried there. After all...I was brought up that Mom and Grandma were always right!