On a History Quest

We’re on a ‘rabbit trail’ at present. We were contacted by a priest friend asking for help with research on a local tragedy that occurred 70 years ago. In our quest for further information we visited our local historical society yesterday. So fascinating and they had the information we were searching for! The children were thrilled to discover the ‘Card Index’ records the society keeps. Information is recorded on every family who appears in the local paper, we found birth notices and pictures of our family. Considering we have only been here for 15 years we were rather impresssed to find ourselves in records.

Yesterday Koala and I visited an old cemetery. Our plan is to take pictures of all the little boys’ graves involved in the tragedy, and the monuments to them around town. The boys are buried with lots of other children nearby. Truly this is such a tragic section, there were so many children. So young; 3 days, 11 weeks, 5 months, 11 years and so many more. Some headstones listed parents and children who died within a day of each other. We noted some dates as 1900 and assumed they were victims of the influenza that swept our nation that year.

Normally I enjoy cemeteries (I know I’m weird.) Just last Saturday as we passed a cemetery on our way to a soccer game, Koala reminisced about when my friend Margaret and I used to drag our children off to cemeteries. What was very funny was following Margaret home from the soccer game and braking for her to pull into the cemetery;)

Yesterday though we found this cemetery very, very sad. All these little children together, so young, too soon. We have another cemetery to visit yet and monuments about town. More to research as I can’t yet answer all of Father’s questions.