Whistling Past the Graveyard

You may recall the recounting, a year or two ago on the ol' web page, of the life, times and untimely demise - at the age of 24 - of my grandmother's brother Andrew.  At that time, in 1925, he was a fireman working on a locomotive for the "Big Four Railroad" (or the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St Louis Railway) when, en route to Cincinnati, his appendix burst.  Having been transported to a Cincinnati hospital, as the family history tells, he refused to allow surgeons to operate on him until a relative - any relative back in Springfield, Ohio - had been notified and present.  One can imagine how long that process might have taken in 1925.  As a result, by the time the doctors proceeded it was too late and Andrew died from peritonitis.

You might also recall that Andrew was a World War I veteran and that I had previously shared with you a photo of him in uniform:

While on a routine genealogical research mission to Springfield early last year (2012), we discovered that his upright government-issued grave marker (grave markers are provided by the government for its veterans) had been broken off at its base.  Andrew is buried in one of Springfield's active cemeteries, one which has fortunately had little or no incidents of vandalism over the years.  As such, we cannot be certain as to what caused the damage but it was, of course, very old and was made of soft, weather-worn marble.  Perhaps it was only a matter of time.  This discovery initiated a protracted process by which we subsequently made several trips to the V.A. in order to have it replaced. Our service officer at the V.A., Tony Johnson, is a helluva guy.  Himself a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, he was both sensitive and enthusiastic about helping our cause in every way conceivable.  With us present, he placed phone calls to Washington D.C. and to Quantico - always on speaker-phone so that there would be no mysteries as to the process.  Immediately Tony, and we, ran headlong into bureaucratic resistance.  At all times Tony conducted himself in a professional and respectful way, but we could sense his growing frustration as events wore on.  Tony understood this was an important cause for us but also, as a veteran himself, this was an important task for him as well - time and again Tony verbalized his strong feelings about the importance of honoring our heroic dead - and he fought like a tiger to accomplish our shared goal. 

Our first bureaucratic roadblock, we were required to provide Andrew's Social Security number.  You might think the federal government would understand this was an impossibility as Andrew died 10 years before the advent of Social Security.  Nevertheless, Miss Functionary at V.A. HQ in D.C. was adamant.  

Officer Leatherneck at Quantico was, unsurprisingly, much more helpful.  When we were unable to provide Andrew's service number (our second roadblock; I'm not sure who, when Andrew was living, would have known that information, let alone his few remaining descendants 90 years later), the serviceman at Quantico volunteered an alternate route for us which, as he correctly asserted, would ultimately resolve our matter; contacting the service records archive at a top secret location in St Louis, Mizzou [?!].  Of course, this being the federal bureaucracy, there were complicating factors.  Our request for information had to be made in writing; no phone call on our behalf from a V.A. service officer would suffice, no imagined (by me) threat of a Quantico-directed military raid would sway the archives.  No, we had to submit our request in writing.  What is this, the 18th century?  Tony helped us with the request (a much more complex form than anyone might expect) and asked us to return when we received Andrew's records.

Our next roadblock, courtesy of St Louis, was conflicting D.O.B. information.  Andrew's mother died in 1911, his father early in 1917.  Upon Andrew's 17th birthday in October of 1917, four months after the United States' entry into WW1, he enlisted with the Navy telling the recruiters he was 18 years of age.  Our records request was for a sailor born in October of 1900, not October of 1899 which the federal government insists as his year of birth (after all, that's the information they have on his enlistment papers) contrary to the Clark County (Ohio) Bureau of Vital Statistics.  Thanks to the expert skill of Tony, at the V.A., he guided us through this minefield and we were, after several months of waiting and numerous visits to the V.A., able to acquire Andrew's service record.  This information in-hand, the ball got rolling on replacing Andrew's grave marker.  I am happy to report that the replacement marker was delivered late last year (2012) and was set this past Wednesday, June 19th, 2013 at - fittingly - 11 A.M.:

The bronze plaque is what each of you have graciously provided with your federal tax money and my family sincerely thanks you.  

This service is an infinitely better use of our federal tax money than the trillions we are spending on non-existent shovel-ready projects, ObamaCare and (here we go again!) Obama Phones, to name just three.  

Speaking of service, both the granite base and the labor cost of setting this new marker were provided to us at no cost by the greatest cemetery superintendent in the world, Pat Mathews.  Such is his dedication to honoring our veterans in general and my own family, in particular (Pat and his father before him have been among the superintendents that buried four generations of my Irish ancestors in Springfield).  Below are two more photos from Wednesday's marker-setting:

Above, the old marker.  Below, both markers (the original marker at upper right, near the shovel) just before the new marker was set into the hallowed ground:

Last July (2012), our genealogical pursuit revealed the burial location of a great-great grandfather as well as a great-great-great (yes, three greats) grandfather, both of whom served in the Union army during the Civil War.  The 2x great grandfather was the son-in-law of the 3x great grandfather.

The 2x great grandfather immigrated to this country as a child in, we think, the 1840s.  By the 1850s he'd migrated to Greene County, Ohio (somewhere in the vicinity of Yellow Springs).  In 1861 he enlisted in Springfield with the 44th Ohio Volunteer Infantry for a three-year hitch.  During his service, his regiment was reorganized as the Ohio 8th Volunteer Cavalry.  After the war, he and his family moved to Dayton, Ohio where he died in 1872.  Initially buried in the St Henry Cemetery in Dayton, he - along with hundreds of others - was re-interred at Dayton Calvary Cemetery when the St Henry Cemetery was closed and the county redeveloped that formerly sacred ground for the Montgomery County fairgrounds.  Until our research last summer, no member of the extended family living today knew the whereabouts of his final resting place.  We paid a visit to his grave last July:

As we were then deep in the throes of having Andrew Dunnigan's grave marker replaced, we were immediately struck by the deteriorated state of 2x's grave marker; leaning at a severe angle and weather-worn to the point of absolute illegibility.

Referencing the hurdles that confronted us with having Andrew's marker replaced, above, we learned that one problem facing those with the same purpose as we is that many of the older military records have been - at various points in time - lost due to fire, flood and, undoubtedly, Democratic Party pestilence.  The older the records are, the more likely they have gone missing.  We were fortunate that the St Louis archives maintained Andrew's WW1 service record.  Absent a Social Security number (strike one) or service number, which we have yet to discover for 2x (ergo, strike two), there is one other official document which the V.A. will accept in order to process replacement markers; a service member's discharge papers.

Altogether now;  strike three.

Maybe.

We do have in our private collection an old copy of a copy of a copy of...... what purports to be 2x's discharge.  It appears that the original, by the time it was copied (whether it was the original itself that was copied or was a copied from microfilm) had been folded and torn.  Some of the detail on our copy is illegible.  Our investigations to this point haven't turned up where the original may be archived - if it even exists at all today.  Naturally, the feds insist upon an original, not a poor, partially illegible copy.

If it weren't such a bureaucratic nightmare it might be funny to also learn that when one applies to the V.A. for a replacement marker, the form requires that the petitioner must be a next-of-kin.  And the form has six - just six - options from which to select:

Father
Mother
Husband
Wife
Son
Daughter

Good luck finding one of them to request a replacement marker for your WW1 or Civil War or War of 1812 ancestor.  The V.A. doesn't even provide an "Other" choice from which to select (that was a tough nut for our man Tony to crack in the case of Andrew Dunnigan whose parents and wife preceded him in death and he had no children, but crack it he did).  Ridiculous.

After being in Springfield to observe the setting of Andrew Dunnigan's replacement marker Wednesday, we then visited a different, older cemetery in Springfield; St Raphael's.  Our research revealed that some of our ancestors were buried there including 3x, the Civil War veteran father-in-law of 2x.

St Raphael's Catholic Church is still an active parish today; my Mom's parents were wed there in the 1920s.  The St Raphael's cemetery was closed a half century or more ago.  Then, we have been informed by sources who know, some 20-odd years ago the church had the fencing removed and sold for scrap.  One must not expend too many brainwaves to discern what that meant in terms of ensuing vandalization.  In recent years, a local Boy Scout Troop dedicated their service time to cleaning up the cemetery and making a grand effort at recording all the names and dates, as to the best of their abilities, that appear on the grave markers and monuments there.  It was through their efforts at cataloging this information that we discovered which of our ancestors were buried at St Raphael's (we contacted the parish which claimed to have no such records on file).  These days, the parish makes an effort at bush hogging the grounds once or twice a year and the acclaimed Pat Matthews (above), himself with no direct connection or obligation to St Raphael's, volunteers his own time and crew to periodically mow St Raphael's.  Even so, despite the best efforts of so many, St Raphael's has today every appearance of the closed, abandoned, neglected cemetery.

After 15 or 20 minutes of exploration, I discovered amid thick over-growth the marker for 3x (I tramped down the overgrown saplings, weeds and grass in order to get a better picture):

As you can see, 3x's small monument has been victimized by vandals.

Regrettably, because St Raphael's Cemetery has been closed and since it still experiences incidents of vandalism, 3x's monument will probably never be repaired or replaced.  Deserving though he is, why give single-braincell derelicts a fresh target?

Unfortunately, we were unable to locate some of our other ancestors  who are also buried at St Raphael's but which the Boy Scouts recorded.  The overgrowth in some areas is so thick it would take a Pacific Theater-grade flame-thrower to cut through the jungle.  Alas, I did not have one with me last week and I don't think we will ever return.

Long-range Reconnaissance

As you might imagine, there were some beautiful monuments at St Raphael's which have been - as yet - untouched by vandals.  I will share some of them with you, below.  Of course, there were numerous markers and monuments which have not been spared, or have been weathered-down to the point of illegibility, but those present too sad a picture to post here.

Perhaps the most striking monument at St Raphael's (an industrial complex of some description, in the background, neighbors the cemetery today).  This monument stands approximately 20 feet tall.

I didn't linger long enough to determine which figure stands atop the monument.  St Peter?  St Peter Edward Rose?  That's who I'm getting for my monument!

This monument (above) stands in a quiet, shady corner of St Raphael's.  The bright orange wild lilies drew me to this scene.

At first glance, this weather-worn three-foot tall column-style multi-hyphenated monument appeared to be nondescript.  Closer inspection revealed a touching, delicate detail:

A carved, single lily (sideways; the bloom is at left.  I neglected to rotate the image before uploading here).