Tombstone Tuesday: Another Name Puzzle

This week's gravestone is my greatgrandmother, Mary F. Orand, at least that's what it says on the stone. She is buried in the Ralls Cemetery, Ralls, Crosby County, Texas. My mother never talked about her very much. About the only thing I knew was that before I was born, I was supposed to be named after her and my father's mother. I was supposed to be Francis Ann Cheek. My parent's were sure I was going to be a girl because they already had a boy. Many of us remember the days when you didn't know ahead of time. After my surprise entrance, they quickly changed my name to Richard Orand Cheek. I never knew for sure where the Richard came from. The Orand is my mother's maiden name. I am eternally grateful that they didn't decide to just go ahead and use Francis or Frances as a boy's name. When I began to research our family history, I looked for the only name I knew, Francis Orand and had a hard time coming up with anything. I found Mary Orand and even Elizabeth Orand in the right places and the right times but no Francis. I finally came across a cousin who clued me in. Our greatgrandmother Orand was originally Mary Francis Elizabeth Brandon. Shazam, the pieces all fell into place. I am grateful to Dave, a FindAGrave volunteer for this picture.

Tombstone Tuesday: Mystery of the Buried Bush

While using the last day of my vacation to fill some Findagrave requests, I found a stone that I'm really at a loss to explain. The stone is in the Purdy Cemetery in Garvin County, OK, not to be confused with the Old Purdy Cemetery which is much harder to find.

The cemetery is about nine miles south of Lindsay on state highway 76. It is easy to find from a large directional sign posted on the highway, is active and well-maintained.

The results of the volunteers annual Memorial Day clean-up are still very evident. Most of the older graves are dated around 1900. There is a larger number of home made stones than I have seen in similar cemeteries. But the real mystery is the partially buried Bush stone pictured below. That is all that it says. There is no other identifying information. The only transcription of this cemetery lists it as Bust, which was my first impression, but obviously not correct.

A search at Ancestry found no records of any Bush families living in this area. There are several in Garvin County, but nearly all of them way over on the east side. Unless someone happens to see it and can share something about it, it will remain the "mystery of the buried Bush."

Tombstone Tuesday: Les Miserables

Sometimes you wish you had been around sooner. While looking for some Cheek family graves at the Olympus Cemetery in Grove, OK, I came across this stone. It has fallen, cracked in half, and is now embedded into the turf. There were no other graves around it that it seemed to belong to. The inscription is

RICHARD

son of
J. W. and F. J.

DAWES
BORN

June 1891

DIED
August 1891

Our little darling

sleeps sweetly in . . .

Someone has added to the Find A Grave memorial that the parents are Jonathan Welch Dawes and Phoebe Jane Kidd Dawes. Perhaps some family member will come across it and provide some mcu needed TLC for the grave.

In Flanders Fields . . .

Sometimes you just don't have a gravestone.

"In Flanders Fields" was written by John McRae, a Canadian army officer after attending the funeral of a friend killed in World War 1. The poem has become a symbol for remembering those who were killed in the "War to End All Wars."

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery contains the remains of an unidentified American soldier who was killed in France in "The War to End All Wars." The inscription on the tomb is "Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God."

While I have no evidence to prove it, it is possible that the body in the tomb is that of my great uncle, Robert Luther Cheek. He was born 02 November1894 in Buffington, GA and died somewhere in France on 29 September 1918. His body was never identified. Ironically, the day he was killed was the day Bulgaria, the first of the Central Powers to surrender, signed the armistice.

A few years after the war, a program began to allow the families of those who had been killed in France to travel to visit the cemeteries where their loved ones were buried. In the picture below, my great grandmother Carrie Savannah Cheek is picture beside a gravestone in France. I had always assumed that she was standing beside Luther's grave, but only recently learned that his body had never been identified and the inscription on the gravestone is "HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD," the same inscription that is on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Two's Company, Three's a Crowd

Does the old "two's company three's a crowd" saying apply to gravestones?

The gravestone of my paternal great-grandparents and great-great aunt. Robert Bruce Cheek, his wife, Carrie Savannah Adams Cheek and his sister, Columbia Cheek were all born in Georgia. Robert and Carrie left Georgia to travel West in 1882. They got as far as Searcy, AR where my grandfather was born in 1883 then for some reason turned around and went back to Georgia. After several years and several more children they headed west again, stopping first in Gainesville, TX and finally in Greer Co. OK before 1903. They homesteaded land just north of Mangum. Several years later, Aunt Columbia joined them. The grave is in Riverside Cemetery in Mangum.

More Family Graves

The very first cemetery I remember visiting is the Riverside Cemetery in Mangum, Greer County, OK. More of my family is buried here than in any other cemetery. The cemetery was only a few blocks from my grandmother's house and we would go there often when I was staying with her. My grandfather, Joseph Marion Cheek, died shortly after I was born so I never got to know him. My grandmother never talked about him very much but we visited his grave frequently to put fresh flowers on it. Grandma Cheek died when I was eight. I remember a lot about her but almost nothing about her funeral. The plot where they are buried also has the graves of my Dad's two sisters, Cleta Cheek Jones and Ruby Cheek Lewis. I still visit Riverside Cemetery everytime we go to Mangum. Unfortunately that is not as often as I would like because none of the family live anywhere near there anymore. But I definitely give credit to Grandma Cheek for helping create my interest in cemeteries. I will be posting more about Riverside and will add to my store of knowledge about this treasured place every chance I get.

For more information on Dad's family go to http://freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cheekfamok/dadsann.html