McPherson

 

We pulled into the town of McPherson, Kansas the afternoon of April 4.  I'm sure to most people McPherson is just a little dot on the map but to me, it was so much more.  If you've followed my genealogy blog over the years, you might remember the awesome experience I had of finding my 3x great grandfather in an unmarked grave in - you guessed it - McPherson, Kansas!  You can read the end of the story HERE and then read the article published in the McPherson County Sentinel about my journey.  My bucket list has always included seeing the grave in person and now I was going to have the opportunity to do just that.

But first, time to check in to the RV Park.

The owners, Jim and Laurie, were such great hosts and we spent some time talking about them selling their house and moving into a 395 square foot home attached to the office.

We had to laugh when Laurie, trying to determine what in the heck we were doing in McPherson, asked if we had family in the area.  Uh, I guess we do.....and then we explained the story.

We got set up in our assigned spot.  It was nice that there was a little bit of astroturf in order to keep some of the dust down, especially since once again it was windy.

No time to relax - it was time to get to the cemetery!  I was surprised how large the cemetery was.

As we drove up to the office a young man stopped us and asked if he could help.  We gave him Emery's name and a brief history of the "story" and once he located his grave, he escorted us to the site and then quietly stepped away.  Now the story was officially complete!

Closer to the camera is his wife, Clarinda, who married Emery after the birth of my 2nd great grandmother and the death of her mother.  I honestly couldn't believe I was really there.

We took a few more photos.

The stone on top was from Clarinda's headstone which is crumbling and pieces were lying on the ground

After a lengthy, emotional stay, we drove away and headed back to the RV park, which was only a few miles away.

The next morning we were up early to visit the local Ford dealership.  Our automatic tail gate wasn't working which made it nearly impossible to hook up the trailer plus we had a few other minor issues to have looked at.  Service work can be difficult to have completed under any circumstances but when you spend only a few days in one place, it can be overwhelming.  Fortunately, we called about 2 weeks before we were scheduled to arrive and got on their schedule so they could take care of things and perform the 30,000 mile check up.  We spent most of the day in the trailer relaxing and taking care of laundry and when they called to say everything was complete, we put on our walking shoes and had a nice (windy!) 2+ mile walk to the dealership to pick up the truck.  

It was nagging me that Emery, a veteran of the Civil War, was not recognized in any way for his service to our country.  So the next day we went to the store (there are WalMarts in every small town) and purchased some flags.  When we arrived at the cemetery, the same young man greeted us and said "hey, you're back!"

From there we headed to the library so I could see if they had information, obituary, or just anything related to Emery and Clarinda.  The librarian was so helpful - Ron even took a picture!  The only new information we found was a note in the cemetery records that at the time of Emery's death there was no headstone.  If that's correct, it answers the question as to whether he ever had a stone or if it had been stolen or destroyed.

After a busy morning, it was time for lunch.  We were thankful that Jim and Laurie had given us some recommendations for restaurants where the "locals" eat and we ended up here.

Oh boy that was a fabulous meal!  

Back to the park to get ready for our departure the next morning.  The wind was fierce and the trailer was rocking!

Bye Kansas - so happy to have been able to check something off my bucket list!

What did we learn here?  We learned that Kansas is very flat and very windy.