Brookside Cemetery

After visiting my grandpa's farm I got directions from my dad to the cemetery where my grandparents are buried.  Since we were living in California when my grandpa died I didn't actually go to the funeral.  My dad was there and some of my siblings I think.  I might have been by the cemetery at some point in the past, but I'm not sure--I certainly don't remember taking any pictures there.

It is interesting to think that family plots are oftentimes a thing of the past due to how often and far people often move.  Do you still live in the same town as your parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents?  I know that I don't even live in the same state as any of those ancestors--though I do live much closer to where my parents and grandparents grew up than I did when I was a child.

The cemetery isn't that far out of town and so it was fairly easy to find once we headed out of town to the south.  Notice the roads on the map above.  Amy finds it strange that so many are laid out in a grid--it is certainly different than the roads in Kentucky or Virginia that seem to follow streams or hills.

The grave markers were fairly easy to follow based on my dad's instructions.  Cutts was my grandmother's maiden name and these were her family's plots.

Dorothy was my grandmother and Stanley (Steward was his middle name) my grandfather.

I tried to clean some of the lichen off the stone, but I think it really needs to be blasted off with a pressure washer or something like that.

This was Aunt Helen, who was my grandmother's sister.  She also died before I was born, but my siblings remember her quite well.  Her house was located right across the street from the farm where my dad grew up.  Her house was the house where my dad was born.

These were my grandmother's parents.  John was the son of Jesse who was the first in the family to own the farm that my dad grew up on.  The initials JFW used to be on the silo next to the barn.  The story I've heard is that he was almost named "John Frank William Jesse David Cutts" but instead he was only John Frank William.

Annie was John's mother, my dad's great-grandmother.

Jesse was John's father.  He bought the original 160 acres that started the family farm.  Before it was sold it was a one time a Michigan Centennial Farm since it had been in the same family over one hundred years.

This GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) insignia is next to Jesse's grave indicating that he fought for the north in the Civil War.

I thought the gravestone was rather interesting and deserved some detail shots.  I was quite surprised to learn that it was over a hundred years old.  It doesn't look very weathered, but must have been there since at least 1909.

I think my parents have a good bit of information on various Cutts family members going back well into the 1800s.

This nearby marker wasn't family (at least not that I know of), but it is a style that I like showing the date of marriage for the couple along with their birth and death dates.

Family history can be quite interesting, and I enjoy opportunities to check it out.  Someday I look forward to telling stories to my kids about our family.

~Matt