Four Weeks from Mother's Day to Memorial Day

As part of my low-cost campaign for Congress in 2004, I wrote a book on my family, "Four Generations of Service." It became a family history that reaches back, covering almost 200 years of activity in the Eureka area.

Last week, I was rewarded by receiving a call from a lawyer in which I gave permission for some of its content to be used in a local, historical Memorial Day affair.

My knowledge of family and the area was kindled by my actions while a young fellow, born in 1925, the youngest member of my family which had to survive the Great Depression of the '30s.

Springtime in the family meant that it was time to tend the graves of family. Most were interred in the Catholic Cemetery in House Springs, St. Philomena at the time. The land for the cemetery was donated by the Albert Weber family whose farmhouse is still just to the south of the cemetery. Albert had a herd of sheep, each with a bell, and as we worked toward evening just up the hill, I will always remember that peaceful sound. My grandfather and grandmother are in a prominent spot, as well as my mother and father and countless other relatives, many comparatively recent.

Doing this caused me to look into the grave site of my great-grandfather and his wife, which was in a neglected older cemetery farther east down in Rock Creek.  It was comsumed by a mangled group of various trees and neglect, and quite a chore to patch up the tombstones and clear it off.  Study of the family showed that on shipboard, another family died, and they took their child and brought him along, known in the family as "little John."

One day as we worked on the tombstone, some other visitor called to me that there might be another stone hidden in brush apart from where we worked. Sure enough,  there was "little" John Weber with the correct dates to verify our earlier estimates.

All this happened before the days of perpetual care, etc., and leads me to a question for the readers. That is:   Who will tend your grave?

For those who would like to read a PDF of my book, click here.  I have found my weeks of work have provided a great history of my family and our part of the country.