RVING-GENEALOGIST-L Archives

Archiver > RVING-GENEALOGIST > 2002-02 > 1013277721


From: "juanita" <>
Subject: Re: [RV-G] A strange event
Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2002 12:02:05 -0600
In-Reply-To: <a1.225abbf4.29968ba8@aol.com>


There are several. Off hand I can think about how we found where my
husband's ancestors and my ancestors once owned land in Iowa that were
adjoining properties - back in the middle 1800's. My mom and dad didn't
even know ea. other when they were growing up in Iowa - they'd married in
KS and I'd never been in Iowa until my husband and I began our family
research. My husband's family didn't know my family until after we were
married.

My mom was born in a little rural town in Lucas Co. IA and my husband's
ggrandfather (25-30 yrs. earlier) had been the first mail carrier there.

One day, in the 1980's, my mom's sister was telling me about a strange
happening. She'd gone to Lucas Co. one summer just to visit the old
home place and stopped to talk to a farm family living nearby. They were
telling her about the family who were then living in my aunt's old
homeplace. She said one evening, for no apparent reason, the ceiling joist
broke and out of the attic a tombstone came tumbling down. It looked like
it'd never been set on a grave, or if it had, it hadn't been there long. My
aunt didn't have any idea how the grave marker could have been in the
attic. She'd moved away from IA years before but she was relating the
strange story to me.

In 1982 I happened to read an article published by an Iowa genealogy
society about an event that aroused my interest. It was a story published in
the newspaper in Lucas Co. about a family who lived on a farm near
Chariton. It said while two of the men were tearing out the floorboards in a
farm shed they discovered a tombstone of a child. On the headstone was
the name "John B., son of D.B. and M. Anderson, died July 15, 1864,
aged one year 10 months, six days." Local records didn't reveal the death.
Supposition was it may have been a child who died while a group of
Mormons were traveling through that area on their way to Utah. Local
officials said the farm family living there couldn't do anymore digging as it
apparently was a burial site. That was the extent of the article.

Later, we were in Iowa and I wanted to take pictures of my mom and aunt's
old home place. Asking around I found the present day owners of the
property and I contacted them. A very nice lady answered my questions
saying she'd inherited the farm and when I told her the story about a
tombstone being found there, she told me she had it. I was most
surprised as I had no idea what ever happened to it. Sure enough she
showed it to me - still intact with the same inscription on it. She hadn't
heard my story that my aunt had related about it having fallen out of the
attic of the old farm house.

Eerie, to say the least! We never found an answer to who put the
tombstone in the attic, or how it came to be under a shed on the farm. The
lady telling me she'd inherited the farm from an uncle said she'd been told
it was found in the timber where cattle grazed and was apparently stashed
under the floor of the shed.

Another person had said she was a distant relative of the Anderson child
and that Mrs. Anderson's husband was in the Civil War and while he was
gone, the child died. Later her husband was killed in the war - she
remarried later and she eventually moved to California.

Whether any of this is true or not, I don't know. It's a strange happening
that occured in my Mom's family. How I regret not knowing all this when
she was alive. She loved a mystery!

juanita


> Good morning Juanita and other Charter Members,
>
> Wow, Juanita that story about you and the man in the cemetery looking
> for the same family name is one of those strange coincidences that
> makes me have chills.
>
> You know, right here on this list, you could start writing a book
> about the strange things that happened to you on your search for
> information on your ancestors. I'd love to hear the stories.

> SandraZ

This thread: