Mary Crookston: Day Two

We went cemetery hunting today - all over York and Adams counties in PA.

Trinity Roth's United Church - Church of Christ

Christ (Roth's) Church

Cemetery in Jefferson

Bernard Spangler that we looked for all day, but couldn't find, when we got home we looked over the pictures and discovered him there. With all the "take a picture of this" and "take a picture of that" I got a picture of the grave stone and we didn't even realize it. So I guess tomorrow we will be going back. But in our defence, his name isn't spelled correctly.

St. Emanuel's Union Church

This one was right by the last one, just across the road. We found a bunch of Dubs, and Sally King, who I guess we are related to, Robin found her and was so excited to show Aunt Louise, who was very excited in return, maybe I should have done more research before I came so I could be excited to. Oh and I forgot, these people were almost all of German immigrants, so quite a few of the older headstones were in German, all day long I just kept saying we should have brought Rosa along to interpret.

Jefferson Cemetery

We found this one thanks to the road workers by the last cemetery who gave us instructions to a few cemeteries in this township, or area. We found a few interesting ones, the most interesting was the Bernard Spangler that belongs to Robin, the one that brought Aunt Louise and Robin together in the first place! They thought their Bernards were one and the same, but found out they weren't but became Family History buddies in the process, and again I will say that I am glad that they did! Robin has been a great hostess and a tour guide to boot!

St. Jacob's (Stone) Union Church

The Stone church was beautiful, up on top of the rolling hills, back off the road a bit, we are lucky we even found it at all, Robin just kept driving down the road, saying we will turn around in a minute, but there it was. Aunt Louise found this Thoman family, I guess she was looking for I had only been asked to look for Spanglers to begin with, then Dubs were added, then Hoff, then Myers (but this one wasn't hard because there are a lot of them). Now Thomar - I really should have prepared myself better for this, oh well I guess I am still of some use as the trip's official photographer.

Old Wildasin Burial Grounds

I must say that this was one of the more interesting, of the oldest and smallest of the cemeteries we have been to. It is in Codorus State Park, on a wooded hill that you can peak though to see Lake Marburg. We found ancestors for all of us, mostly due to the helpful plaque, I will all cemeteries had plaques, with names and dates like this one and St. Emanuel's.

Pictures from Codorus State Park

St. Paul's (Dubs) Union Church

This one was in the middle of the state park, but not in the park. Great old church to go along with it.

Wildasin meeting house and cemetery (also in Codorus State Park)
My all time favorite cemetery of the day, maybe of all time (How often do you get to - or want to say that?).

After a long walk we found the little church house with a gated cemetery in perfect seclusion. Peaceful and beautiful just about sum it up, but without being there it is hard understand.

War vets on our line. Oswald Dubs was in the Revolutionary war, the other Dubs was in the war of 1812, but I am not sure if he is a direct ancestor or not.

Another German one for Rosa!

Gettysburg

The last place we went today was Gettysburg, the largest burial ground of all. We arrived in the late afternoon, so didn't have a huge amount of time, but we drove over the auto tour, and stopped to take a few pictures.

On the tower over looking the battlefields. It is scary to think of these peaceful fields being the location of such horror and gore as they were. In fact if you didn't know about the battle fought right here you would think it such a beautiful and serene place, maybe knowing about all that happened here just makes you think more and lends to the quiet, instead of taking away.

The Spangler farm is famous, but on a sad note, I don't know my Civil War history well enough to know why. This farm belonged to a George Spangler, although we are not sure just how he fits in our family, it is interesting to think of him and his family having a part in this all important part of American History, according to the tower guide they had front row seats.