Happy Family from California

                        
Several months ago I was contacted by Betty Villasenor, who lives in California.  She was trying to make a wish come true for her 93 year old mother, Hilda Velarde Salas.  Her mother was trying to locate the burial spot of HER mother, Josefina Duran Velarde who had died in 1929. 

I could find that Josefina was buried at San Jose Cemetery, but the exact location is lost.  This cemetery has been under the auspices of several different churches in Albuquerque through the years and records have been lost.  That is sad as it is a large cemetery with many names.  Thankfully I have two old records with names and we were able to ascertain that Josefina was here.

Betty, her mother Hilda and her three sisters as well as many family members travelled to Albuquerque from California to pay respect to their dear relative.  Their niece painted a rock to leave at the cemetery to honor her. 

I am so thrilled that through the work of the New Mexico Tombstomb group we could reunite this family.

A great year - and Fantastic volunteers!

December 10, 2013

As we finish this year, I am once again thankful for such dedicated volunteers.  But calling them volunteers seems wrong - they are actually family to me.  All of us consider each other our extended family.  Each brings such special joys and talents to our small but productive group.

Lee Miller is our world traveler.  He has been to Africa, India and many places inbetween.  He has taught German and his writing is so precise that it is difficult to read at time!  He is affectionately called our "Candy Man" as he brings a well-stocked bag of chocolates and goodies to every one of our meeting.

Sharon Serrano is one tireless worker!  She has single handed finished up Sunset Memorial Park with hours and hours of work.  She is tackling Mountain View (Barton) now all by herself.  She transcribed some old death records too!  Her hours almost exceed the groups totals!  And she comes in from the East mountains on sheets of ice at times.

Wink Winkeljohn is another tireless worker who keeps going even when he isn't feeling well.  He has done all the mapping work for the cemetery submissions to Charles for our website.  This takes quite a bit of effort with searching for signs of cemeteries on the satellite views and then getting precise directions.  And he likes doing this!

Diane Bloom has many hats she wears - even sometimes to Tombstone!  She volunteers in many, many different venues.  But she has tackled a very difficult book to currently transcribe - it is burials for Valencia county and most of it is written in Spanish, which she has to translate.  And she doesn't speak Spanish! 

Beautiful Barb Borowy - my fellow Corralenos!  Barb works tirelessly for Tombstone but she is also very versatile and knowledgable with Genealogy.  She has helped me find some of my relatives and set me on paths to find out more.  It was through her love of genealogy that drove me to find more.  I can always go to her with a question.  And her handwriting is gorgeous in our Tombstone books - the transcribers love her work!

And my non-complaining husband...he may want to, but doesn't dare.  He writes what I give him, drives me to hundreds of cemeteries in the state (actually in ANY state) and walks with me in the cold, wind and rain just to get 'one more picture of that grave over in the corner'.  I think the chocolates that our Candy Man brings keep him coming!

Missing this day at the library were Gloria Henderson, BJ Minshall and Betty Lamberti.  I'll catch them later.

Gettysburg Address update

In my post of November 19, 2013, I wrote about the Gettysburg Address given by Abraham Lincoln on the battlefield of Gettysburg.  After I made that post, I received a catalog from my sister of rare books and was surprised by an entry in regards to the Gettysburg Address.  I would like to include it here.

The actual name of the Address was "An Oration Delivered on The Battlefield of Gettysburg (November 19, 1863) at the Consecration of the Cemetery ; Prepared for the Interment of the Remains of Those Who Fell in the Battles of July 1st, 2d and 3d, 1863".  We know it as the Gettysburg Address.

This is a rare first edition of Lincoln's magnificent Gettysburg Address, scrawled on scratch paper and back of envelopes and corresponds almost exactly to his spoken version. 

The Washington Chronicle reported on November 21, 1863 the events at the cemetery and printed verbatim Edward Everett's 2 hour oration (which preceded Lincoln's address).  There was no mention of the President Lincoln's short speech.  Four days later the paper mentioned that President Lincoln had also given "a short speech".  Finally a pamphlet was printed of Edward's Oration (as it came to be known) and Lincoln's speech was tucked away as a final paragraph on page 16.  Later that year, a booklet was published of Edward's Oration and this time Lincoln's address was included - on page 40.  Despite the notoriety of Edward Everett's oration, it is only President Lincoln's short 2 minute speech that is remembered today.

This rare first edition of Lincoln's speech (handwritten) is available for $55,000.

Coins on Tombstoes

COINS LEFT ON TOMBSTONES

While visiting some cemeteries you may notice that headstones marking certain graves have coins on them, left by previous visitors to the grave.

These coins have distinct meanings when left on the headstones of those who gave their life while serving in America's military, and these meanings vary depending on the denomination of coin.

A coin left on a headstone or at the grave site is meant as a message to the deceased soldier's family that someone else has visited the grave to pay respect. Leaving a penny at the grave means simply that you visited.

A nickel indicates that you and the deceased trained at boot camp together, while a dime means you served with him in some capacity. By leaving a quarter at the grave, you are telling the family that you were with the solider when he was killed.

According to tradition, the money left at graves in national cemeteries and state veterans cemeteries is eventually collected, and the funds are put toward maintaining the cemetery or paying burial costs for indigent veterans.

In the US, this practice became common during the Vietnam war, due to the political divide in the country over the war; leaving a coin was seen as a more practical way to communicate that you had visited the grave than contacting the soldier's family, which could devolve into an uncomfortable argument over politics relating to the war.

Some Vietnam veterans would leave coins as a "down payment" to buy their fallen comrades a beer or play a hand of cards when they would finally be reunited.

The tradition of leaving coins on the headstones of military men and women can be traced to as far back as the Roman Empire.

Thanks to Wink for this information.

Soldiers' National Cemetery, Gettysburg, PA

150 years ago today

More than four months after the Battle of Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln participated in a ceremony to dedicate the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at the battle site in Pennsylvania. The president’s role at the ceremony was minor, but his short speech is now considered one of the greatest orations in our nation’s history. Today marks the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s iconic words, which are etched into stone at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Maxwell Land Grant

Maxwell Land Grant and Lucien Maxwell

Charles "Carlos" Beaubien (1800-1864) was a French Canadian who  moved to Taos in 1823, opening a dry goods and trapper supply store.  He later married Maria Pabla Lobato (1811-1864), the daughter of a prominent local family, and became a Mexican citizen in 1827.  By 1840 he had become an influential Taos merchant with many large landholdings.  Lucien Maxwell was a fur trapper from Illinois who had traveled to Taos, the fur trading capital of the Southwest, during the winter of 1841-1842.  There he met Beaubien and the two quickly became friends.  He soon married Beaubien's eldest daughter, Luz (1829-1900) and they married in 1844.  Together the Maxwell's had nine children, among them a daughter Verenisa (1860-1864) who is buried in the old plaza along with her grandmother, Pabla Beaubien.

Winkeljohann Family Cemetery

Katrikna Cemetery in Voltlage, Germany


Al Winkeljohn, from my Tombstone group, sent me these pictures of his family cemetery.  The cemetery is St. Katharina Cemetery in Voltlage, Osnabruck, Lower Saxony, Germany.  This beautiful cemetery is in the small village of only 1750 people!