Disappeared

         For those of you who know me, you know how much I love visiting cemeteries. This feeling has grown over the years as I delve deeper and deeper into family history. Cemeteries  certainly evoke powerful emotions when you visit the places where your loved ones are interred. However, to us family history historians they also can provide valuable information about your loved ones that you might not have had before, and even answer some unresolved questions.

But what happens if you can’t find where one of your ancestors is buried in a cemetery. Or what if you know where they were buried, but the cemetery has been declared defunct and your ancestor’s remains have been moved to a new cemetery? It is like they have disappeared. These circumstances occur more than you might think and both situations have happened to my loved ones.

On my dad’s side of the family, my second great-grandparents are buried in the Hinch Cemetery in Cumberland County, TN. Their names are Lorenzo Dow Harris and his wife Lucinda Monday. Data taken from the Cumberland County Cemetery book for the Hinch Cemetery states they were both buried there. Their burial places could have originally been marked by a simple stone instead of a headstone, and now their final resting place has been lost to time. Here is a little bit about them.

Hinch Cemetery taken by Gordon Reed 2004

Lorenzo Dow Harris was born in North Carolina in 1816. By 1839 he was in Tennessee. He served in the Confederate Military (Carter’s 1st) TN Cavalry for 12 months, then it was reported that he deserted. He farmed for a living, lived a long life and died in 1902 at age 86.

Lucinda Monday was born in Tennessee around 1825. She and Lorenzo married around 1845, and had 10 children together. She passed away in 1883. 

Emily Hinch, my G-grandmother - one of Lorenzo and Lucinda's children

This is how they fit into our family - their first child was Emily “Emma” Harris (photo above). She was born in 1848, and she married James Nathan Hinch. James and Emily were my great grandparents, the parents of Stewart Hinch, my dad’s father. The clipping from 1870 US Census shows that James (Line #7) and Emily (line 17) lived nearby, since their two farms were close by. They married two years later.

1870 census showing Hinch and Harris families close to each other

        Sadly, there are a few other unmarked graves at the Hinch Cemetery as well as these two. I've had the opportunity to visit this cemetery about 6 times now, and I am grateful just knowing that they are resting in this beautiful place.

On my mom’s side of the family, in the 1950’s there were two cemeteries in the Philadelphia area (where I had family members buried) that were declared defunct, meaning the cemetery lands were needed to be used for other purposes, and the remains of the people interred there would be moved to a different cemetery. Notices were required to be published in the local newspapers beforehand, so that relatives of the deceased could make other arrangements, if desired, or headstones could be moved. You see, any headstones or other markers were not moved, just the actual remains of the interred. The headstones etc. would be destroyed. This might not always be the case, but I believe it is the norm. So any information on the headstones, etc would be lost. 

My family did not live in the area where they would have seen these notices published, so they were unaware that this had happened until a few years afterwards. My great grandfather, John Koetzle Jr. (I wrote about him recently) purchased two large plots in the Odd Fellows Cemetery in 1905 and 1907. I have the original deeds which were passed down to me, along with a letter in 1953 from the “new” cemetery, listing the location of where the deceased’s remains have been re-interred, as well as the names of each person buried in these new plots. 

front cover of deed of lots purchased in 1905 by John Koetzle

I went to visit the new cemetery called Lawnview in 2017. I had made arrangements earlier to meet someone there who was able to show me where my loved ones’ remains are buried. It was very nice place, but where they were buried was “just” a grassy green expanse. The cemetery sexton paced off the area where my family was. There was nothing to identify who was buried there. 

Lawnview Cemetery, Dauphin area, where remains were re-interred

The cemetery office did have the original burial records from the Odd Fellows Cemetery, and they gladly made a copy of those records for me. And I am permitted to purchase a bronze marker with any information I choose to be inscribed and placed in the new location where they are buried, at my expense. I still hope to do that. Its just sad to me, and I feel my loved ones have disappeared. Plus I will never know what information could have been on some of the original headstones.

John and Lizzie Koetzle - g-grandparents whose remains were moved in 1951

I won’t list all the names, but here are some of my ancestors who were re-interred in 1951.

John and Elizabeth Reilly Koetzle, my great grandparents (my mom’s maternal grandparents)

Matilda Reilly (my great-great  grandmother from Ireland, Elizabeth’s mother)

Mary J. McDowell, a family friend and possibly a relative from Ireland

4 children who died before reaching adulthood, one of which was my mom’s sister.

In addition, John Reilly (Matilda’s husband, my Irish great-great grandfather) and two of their young children were buried in the ME Union Cemetery in Philadelphia between 1870 and 1872.The remains of all those buried there have since been re-interred at the Arlington Cemetery, Drexel Hill, Delaware County, PA.

    There are still mysteries to be solved with some of these folks, and I will never know if a clue could have been on any of those gravestones. But I will continue trying to answer these questions. And I will come back to visit you again.

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