Spring has arrived in South Pennsyltucky; as I write this, there’s a moderate spring monsoon. The last two weekends I’ve gone to a local cemetery to explore — no, I haven’t found what I’m looking for — and yesterday, I drove down to Baltimore to look once more at Loudon Park. When I was there … Continue reading Hiking Around a Cemetery
Tag: Loudon Park Cemetery
After a couple of mild winters, this year has brought the snow. Since the beginning of the year, I think there’s been a snowfall at least once a week, and for most of the last month there’s been snow on the ground. It hasn’t been warm enough to melt the last snow, and the next … Continue reading Investigative Cemetery Explorations
For the Fourth of July, I drove down to Baltimore to visit the cemeteries and leave flags.
Saturday I drove down to Baltimore to visit Loudon Park Cemetery. I hadn’t been since the end of January, it was a nice day, and a cemetery is a place where one can socially distance without much difficulty. I had no idea if I would be able to get into the cemetery; some cemeteries are … Continue reading Questionnare!
Today, being a nice day before the polar vortex arrives midweek (or not), I went down to Baltimore for some cemetery exploring. On Monday, I found a reference to my great-grandfather Allyn Gardner in a defunct Baltimore daily German language newspaper. According to a one-line note, he was the witness to a marriage license issued … Continue reading Gathering Evidence on a Genealogical Puzzle
Earlier last week I took a short trip to Baltimore’s Loudon Park Cemetery, where my great-grandparents, three of my great-grandfather’s siblings, and his mother are buried. The Baltimore area received about three and a half inches of rain over the weekend (from mid-day Friday to Sunday evening), and, since the cemetery floods, I wanted to … Continue reading A Christmastime Visit to the Cemetery
In mid-September it dawned on me that November 11, 2018 would mark the 100th-anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I. Intellectually, as an historian, I knew this. I knew it in the same way that I know that water freezes at 32 degrees and objects fall to the earth at 32 feet per … Continue reading My Armistice 100 Adventure
Friday I took a vacation day. Though long planned, for about five months, I needed the day badly; work has been mentally exhausting and physically draining this year, and with the never-ending publishing cycle of writing and deadlines I have always struggled to even take the minimum required five vacation days each year, and it’s … Continue reading Leaving Flowers
Ducks splashed in the water. Two larger ducks, adults obviously, sat on outcroppings just beyond the shoreline, while four ducklings paddled in the water. Sometimes, the adults would move from one outcropping to another. Sometimes they would see me, twenty yards distant or more, and take flight, either jump-flying to the opposite shore or, more … Continue reading Scenes of Terrible Beauty
It was all I could do not to vomit when I stepped from the Beetle. I’ve been to Baltimore’s Loudon Park cemetery a few times in the last year, first to locate my great-great-grandmother’s grave, which I found right away, and then follow-up visits to find my great-grandfather’s brother’s grave, which I finally located about … Continue reading A Cemetery Underwater
Spring has been oddly slow to arrive this year. The first nice weekend of the spring, I went to Lynchburg and saw Carbon Leaf. The second nice weekend of the spring, I went to Cecil County and poked around cemeteries. This was the third nice weekend of the spring, and on Saturday I drove down … Continue reading Finding a Distant Relation
Thursday I got the Beetle back. It had been in the shop for a week and a half, after I had broken the key off in the ignition. It should not have taken that long, but the newly cut key Volkswagen sent wasn’t cut properly — keys for the Beetle are laser-etched, for security purposes … Continue reading Returning to a Cemetery