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I called Daisy Smith Harger “Mimi.” She is the only one of my great-grandparents that I have any real memories of. I had one other great-grandmother who lived a few years longer than Mimi, and I do remember her, but I don’t have a strong image of her in my head. I didn’t see her as often as I saw Mimi. I can picture Mimi nearly as clearly today as I ever have been able to.
Today I went to visit her grave. I’ve been doing genealogical research lately, and I wondered if the cemetery might yield some clues in terms of dates of birth and death, marriages, and other information that could be used in identifying people in census records and such.
I don’t think I did discover anything that I didn’t already know, but I am glad I went. I couldn’t say with any certainty that any family member has been to visit my Mimi’s grave in the past thirty years. By the time she and my great-grandfather were buried at Stonewall, the family had been away from there for quite some time.
Here’s their gravestone.
I was a little sad that it looked so old and weathered. I guess that’s just the kind of stone it is. Other stones that were even older didn’t look that weathered.
For example, here’s my great-great grandfather, Jesse Stephen Smith.
(I’m really quite confused by the 1840 on the gravestone. He never did give the same year twice for a date of birth in the census records, but he always claimed to have been born within a year or two of 1860.)
And Jesse’s wife, Lena Davis Smith.
Sorry, Grandma. I should have cleaned the leaves away before I took the picture. That’s just what you get for having only me to come visit you. I’m not really that concerned about the leaves getting in my way.
The reason my great-grandparents wanted to be buried in Clarke County was because they had two babies buried there.
Here’s the gravestone of John William Harger Jr. He lived to be six months old.
There was another baby named Wilber or Wilmer or something like that. He lived to be two years old. I took a picture of his gravestone, but you can’t make out the wording on it, so I’m not going to post it today.
I have a few other pictures of the dearly departed, but I’m going to just save them to post on genealogy sites. For now, Daisy Smith Harger’s stone will have to do for my picture of the day. All of these other ancestors might be dearly departed, but she is the one who is long lamented for me.
