Posted on 10/11/2004 6:36:53 AM PDT by Constitution Day
free dixie,sw
There were commemorative postage stamps for each group issued in the mid-1950s on the occasion of the last national "encampment" or meeting of each. The Confederates held their last one year after the last GAR encampment.
Also, I remember reading in Time Magazine in the early 1960s of the deaths of the last two veterans, one from each side. The last Union soldier to die was a retired coal miner from what had come to be known as West Virginia. The last soldier to die was a Texas rancher, a former Confederate drummer boy, who died one year after the coal miner. IIRC, the Texas rancher fell off his horse while riding the perimeter of his ranch at the age of 110 in 1961.
There is a stone in Mystic, Iowa's Highland Cemetery that gives name, birth and death as well as the phrase: Been here and gone. Had a good time."
That's a great story! Interesting read, and it shows what can happen when you don't give up. Persistence pays off every time.
I live in Harvard, MA, and we have the grave of a British soldier who died in the 1700's of smallpox. They went as far west as they could into the boondocks to bury him, which is what Harvard was at that time. Nowheresville. The grave is on Poor Farm Road, neatly kept up by the local historical society. We're also the site of an early Shaker settlement and so have a very old Shaker cemetery. I was walking one of my dogs in there one afternoon, and he suddenly took off, over the stone wall, leaped into the car through the open window, dragging me with him. He was terrified. I've always thought one of the elder ghosts told him to get out! I've taken him back from time to time, but he's never comfortable there. Other cemeteries, he seems okay.
I just hate seeing family cemeteries here in NC that are untended & forgotten.
Not too long ago, a relative called me about a cemetery that was "discovered" by a Girl Scout troop camping near a local lake.
Some of my ancestors are buried there and none of us knew where the cemetery was.
The Girl Scouts have decided to clean it up as a community service project.
A few of my relatives & I are planning to donate $ to their troop when they get working on it.
That was really nice of them.
Several of my ancestors are under the tarmac at Dobbins AFB in Marietta, Ga. They tried to locate as many as possible, but my grandma told me there were several they didn't find.
Oh well, at least they're not alone, there's many Union and Confederate soldiers buried under the tarmac with them.
There's all kinds of older cemeteries around here. One located in Villa Rica, about 35 miles west of Atlanta, has toombs from the late 1780's, the earliest found this far up in "Injun country".
he had been a private in the 9th TX Cavalry, from 1862 to the BITTER END.
free dixie,sw
i also know of one in McKinney, TX which reads:
I AM WHAT YOU WILL BE.
i assume DEAD is what was meant.
also, i have stood at the grave site of John Emerson Longly, late of 2d TX Infantry,CSA, at a private burial spot in TX. he is buried INSIDE a LIVING (hollow) TREE, standing up and facing SOUTH!
free dixie,sw
and one more epitath=====>
Here is the last resting place of Les Moore
Shot 2 times in the head with a Colt's .44
Now there's NO Les, NO Moore.
<=====that one was obviously not put up by a friend!
free dixie,sw
The Illinois Basin includes all the coals in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and western Kentucky. The phrase was in the obits of virtually anyone who had been in the coal biz.
(PLEASE, don't tell mama i'm in the AWL BIZNESS. she thinks i play piano in a bawdy-house in east Dallas.)
LOL.
free dixie NOW,sw
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