The Wojahn Visit #1: Cemetery Hopping

For some reason lately, late at night, I've been having huge energy surges. So I'm trying really hard to write, but my mind has been going from a shattered bits of wild thoughts to suddenly nothing. Rar.

I started this a few days ago, so maybe I can at least settle down enough to finish it.

We didn't originally set out to find a cemetery. We originally intended to drive out to Tribbey to my...great-grandfather's property? (I start getting confused on all the great's. I think it was my great-grandfathers.) My aunt had grown up playing on the farm, my grandma had fond memories of the family being out there and I had never seen it before so off we went with my uncle leading the way.

Of course, the person who owns the property now has no idea who we were and it wasn't exactly friendly in appearance. My aunt and uncle tried knocking anyway - to let them know why on earth we were in their driveway and ask permission - but no one was home.

However, apparently the lady next door was married to the son of the man my grandfather originally sold the property to. So while she had no idea who we were either (not that we were really expecting her to) I think it still pleased my aunt and grandma that the property was still being passed down.

However, while waiting in the car my grandma mentioned that a cemetery where many of our relatives were buried was nearby.
"Really?" I said.
"Right down that road."

While I found ancestry mildly interesting - and at some point in my life I might be curious enough to dig a bit more - it's not necessarily something I currently go out of my way for. My aunt, however, is deeply interested in it and, I mean, we were right there. Plus we could take pictures of the headstones and have birth dates and death dates with easy access. So I said, hey, we should do that.

Which is how we found ourselves visiting cemeteries in 112 degree heat. Awesome.

Prospect Cemetery in Tribbey, one of two we visited that day. The other was Prairie View, also in Tribbey.

Heh, don't worry, I'm not posting the headstone pictures.

We did however come across this:

This street is apparently named after my family. Who knew? This was my great-great grandmother's land given to her by her tribe and when she married my great-great grandfather it became known as "Kime's Place" and here it is, still known as such. I thought that was pretty cool.

It was also really nice to see the cemeteries. I've never visited those graves before and some of them went back to the 1800's. Honestly, I never even thought I'd see some of them and figured they were lost. Also interesting, someone is still putting flowers on them. I'm not sure who's doing that (we left so spur of the moment we didn't even consider it) but I'm glad they are. That was nice to see. We couldn't imagine who on earth would still be placing them there.

So 112 degrees or not, I'm glad we went. Now we have the pictures - and more importantly (if I wandered around long enough) I could probably find the cemeteries again.