Everyone Is Important

Whenever I see a cemetery, especially an old frontier type cemetery, I wonder if I know any of the people buried there, or if any of them might be my ancestors. It occurs to me that even if there were ancestors of mine in there, it would take more time than I would likely have at that moment, to seek them out. There have been times that I had prepared for a search of the cemetery, of course, but sometimes you just can’t be prepared. Sometimes that graveyard just appears where you least expect it…like the one I noticed, as my sisters and I were driving through a little town in Kansas. As we drove through the town of Coffeyville, Kansas, I noticed a little sign that said, “The Dalton Gang graves” and directions to Elmwood Cemetery. We didn’t go in. We had someplace to be, and I don’t think those graves mattered as much to my sisters as they did to me. I can’t say exactly why they seemed so important to me, except they were…history. The thought that those outlaws had been in that area, carrying out their crimes was…intriguing to me.

There are other cemeteries, of course. The ones you plan to go to, like the one in Deadwood, South Dakota…Mount Moriah Cemetery, where such notables as Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane, as well as some we might not know as well, like Seth Bullock (the first sheriff of Deadwood), Potato Creek Johnny (a local figure known for his colorful life), and Madam Dora DuFran (a local madam and socialite). While this cemetery is rather “touristy,” the graves are real and a must see at least once when you are there. The people buried there are real anyway.

Cemeteries are like that. Sometimes, you know some of the people there and sometimes you don’t, or you wonder if there might be someone there you knew…or knew of anyway. The cemeteries in some of the towns I have stayed in, that are simply the local town cemetery, are the ones I wonder about the most. Especially when they are an old cemetery that has been around forever. Those cemeteries, seem to have no one special buried there, but then, isn’t everyone someone special. While they may not be famous, they were still special…to someone. After all the years I’ve spent researching my family tree, I’ve learned that any cemetery could contain someone in my family, someone who was special to someone, or someone that I wished I could have known. If only I had time to walk through those graves, studying the names, and possibly finding an ancestor there. While the outlaws and the famous lawmen are interesting, unless they are some relation to me, they are simply a novelty. I’m really more interested in the people who, it turns out, are aunts, uncles, and cousins, or grandparents, great grandparents and such. Those are the ones who’s stories I would love to hear…like how they came to live where they did before their passing. Even in my hometown of Casper, Wyoming, I have come across graves that I suddenly realized belong to my own aunts, uncles, and grandparents, and somehow, I didn’t know that they were buried there, and some (especially aunts), who no longer had their maiden names, were aunts about whom I was completely unaware. We should never drive by a cemetery without wondering who might be resting there, because everyone in there is important.