ANN'S ANCESTORS 7/10/2011

 Today, Sunday, we went to church in Quincy IL.  A nice ward.  While there, Ann felt that she wanted to look to see if any of her family lived in that area in ancient times.  She checked her research and found that one of her Huff ancestors was born near there in a small farming community called Beverly.  We left church after Sunday School and after consulting the GPS, the maps and a few farmers, we found the Township of Beverly consisting of two cemeteries, a few houses, a couple churches and lots and lots of corn and soy bean fields.  As you can see by the sign, it is a small place.  By the way, the GPS did not even know of it.


With only two cemeteries that the locals knew of in town, we decided to go to the one that was on the straight line out of town, thus not having to turn around this big rig in this no place to turn around township.  We found it and found a cute little church with it.

 
We delicately maneuvered off the road into the cemetery, between the church and the recently tornado blown down tree.  On the way out here to Beverly, the farmers educated us on the recent tornado they had.  Anyway, thus parked, we began walking the cemetery with the hopes that if one of her ancestors was born here, maybe some were buried here too.

Ann first found the name of the cemetery.  Then Ann took the left side of the trailer and Wayne took the right side.
 
Here is a closeup of the name of the cemetery and the year it was started.

Then a little later, Wayne heard a squeal of excitement and Ann exclaiming, "I found my family!"

Here she is with hers and John's Great-Great Grandparent's headstone.  This man, John Huff emigrated to USA from Prussia and then married Mary from Pennsylvania and then farmed here in and around Beverly Township, IL, raising a family and then dieing here.

 Here is a close up of the details on the headstone.

 Then Ann set about recording the details of the other headstones of family that was buried nearby.

While she did this, Wayne further explored the cemetery and climbed the downed tree.

And in his explorations, found that the back door to the church was unlocked!  Seeing as how it was a Sunday, he figured it would be okay to go inside and see what he could find.  He found it abandoned, so he went back to get Ann and they explored it together.  And guess what we found?!!!

Nailed to the wall in the back room was a map of the cemetery and who purchased what lots, plots and such.  It did not record who was buried there, just who purchased what.  It was fascinating and Wayne was tempted to take it for Ann's records, but then realized that it was probably hanging there for every explorer like us to discover.  So, we took a picture and put it back in its place of honor, nailed to the wall.

You see in Section 12, James Huff bought lot 2 and John Huff bought lot 3.  Pretty neat discovery eh?

Once we had recorded all we could at that cemetery, we drove to the cemetery in town.  Here is the Methodist Church located in front of what was once a cemetery.

We were sadly disappointed that this cemetery was not being taken care of properly.  As we explored what just appeared to be a field, we gradually began to find a few headstones still partially standing and leaning up against trees.  Then further exploration found there were many many headstones that had fallen over years ago and the crabgrass had completely grown over them and covered them making it look like a flat field.  Who ever is the grounds keeper here is mowing it but there is no sacred care of the cemetery.  There needs to be a missionary couple come to research who is buried here and resurrect all these headstones and make it a sacred place again, before somebody forgets it is a cemetery and builds a house over it or a baseball diamond or something.

This is the address of the cemetery here in Beverly that is older than the one we had just visited.  It is known as the Old Beverly Cemetery.

Thus inspired, we did some computer research while we were there and found some records on the cemetery and found there are three that we could find of Ann's family buried there.  Maybe this is a project we should invest our time in.  To us it is very sad that there is not better maintenance of this sacred resting place.  We shall see.
We left this area and drove on towards Gallatinn, MO, spending the night at a Wal-Mart along the way.