I can't believe I did it! I got my husband to get up on a Saturday and head to a county an hour and a half away to see what we could see about his ancestors. You see, he doesn't like to have things sprung on him at the last minute, and I figured there was no way he would go. However, to my happiness, he went without a fight, and we had a great day!
Let me give you a little background. My husband and I just discovered that we like genealogy. After almost 18 years of marriage, it's so neat to find something new that we can do together and enjoy! We have been working on his Wood/Woods family for a month or so, and it was time to head to the nearest county where his relatives had settled. We had done tons of Ancestry and internet searches and had some questions that just couldn't be answered without actually going there and seeing things with our own eyes. We want to go to the Owen County, Indiana courthouse as well, but they aren't open on weekends. Our goal today was to 1) visit the Owen County Library in Spencer, IN and check out the Genealogy section, 2) Visit the known graves of some relatives in this area: Nathan and Sarah Wood, 3) View the property of John Wood (Nathan's dad) in which he obtained a land patent in 1848.
The library was very nice and we poked around some books and, to our enjoyment, they had a Wood Family File chocked full of papers. Of course not all the pieces pertained to our family, but it was so nice to see a hefty file to look through and enjoy. We didn't find anything earth-shattering at the library, but it's nice to know where it is and what it has to offer.
We next headed to the cemetery. Adel Cemetery is south of Spencer and it was very close to the land owned by John Wood. In fact, it was directly across the road from the cemetery. The cemetery sits nicely up a large hill overlooking the road and woods across the road. We immediately found our Nathan and Sarah Wood. We had seen the graves online, but it so much better to see the place your loved ones were laid to rest with your own eyes and heart. Realizing this grave holds my husband's great-great-great grandfather is amazing. He was a Civil War veteran and his grave is marked as such.
We began to walk around near the grave and take notice of other graves and other names. Near Nathan's grave (ten feet or so to the right) was a tilted grave and barely legible. We brushed it with our hands but just couldn't make it out. Brian said, "If we had some water, we could pour some on it to see if that helped." I said, "I do have water in the car on the driver's side door for just these types of emergencies." We retrieved the water and returned to the tilted limestone grave. We poured the water on the grave and a name started to appear....Martha Wood. Now while this seems like a very ordinary name, we both looked at each other and realized we had found something good--- Something that made our trip worth the drive!! You see, we had been trying to locate Nathan's mother and father's death dates for quite a while and were hitting some brick walls. And guess what? Her name was Martha Wood. We had thought she died before 1860, and with some head tilting and some good ole deciphering, we think we can make out the date. It appears to say, DIED JULY 11 1859. Eureka!
While on an "Ancestry High", we began to look around at the other graves. If Martha is here, could John be here too? We starting noticing just small stones in the same line as the Wood area but no writing on the stones. All the other graves seemed eligible or another name besides Wood. We walked around a few minutes and just concluded that John must be buried here but his grave is not able to be seen. Darn it! Seeing that would have made our day even more meaningful. Seeing the grave of your fourth great grandfather would be so much cooler than seeing the third, right? We started walking about the cemetery in the same general area but ventured out. I came back to Martha's graver and kept walking in a straight line directly to the right of her. I found a stone buried in the ground about six by eight inches or so. No writing and buried almost completely. We looked it over pretty well, but decided it was just a footer stone. We continued perusing the ground and found a limestone marker lying face up but only showing about a six by six square. This one had fallen over and was almost completely covered with moss and dirt. I used my shoe to move some moss and some letters started to appear. Brian and I both removed the moss and dirt with our hands and, low and behold, the word WOOD started to show itself to us.
Now let me interject here that I think our ancestors still talk to us. Not in the weird ghostly way, but in something we carry with us. I believe that God is a God who wants us to remember our history, after all, He gave us his Bible which is His history. I think it's important to learn about the history of our families and preserve that for generations to come. Sometimes I think the the scrapbooker in me documents too much of our family history, but then I go to the local public library and open a picture file with one picture for the Wood family for the entire county. Imagine generations from now someone walks into the local library and there is an entire shelf dedicated to the Brian, Deidre and Griffin Woods family and their entire life story is documented with journaling and pictures! Someday the future Woods genealogist in the family will leap with joy when they find all those scrapbooks.
OK.....now back to the story......we continue to clear the stone with water and rub away dirt and moss. Imagine our shock when the name, JOHN, started to show itself. It's very weathered, but it's definitely there in the stone. We believe that the stone says, 1857 JOHN WOOD DIED SEPT. It appears there are other letters under this, but we couldn't make them out. We couldn't do much but just shake our heads. This was very unexpected and did not count on finding this today! We had thought that John died before 1860 as well, and was fairly sure he would be buried here, but Find-A-Grave and other cemetery listings for Adel Cemetery never listed him here. He was one of our stumpers.
When we were heading out of the area, we took some time to look around the area where John Wood's land was located and see what was on the land. We could see a church right on the corner, Adel Church of Christ, and a house tucked back down a lane. We noticed the mailboxes say, "WOOD". Wouldn't that be amazing if our family still lives on the original land purchased by John??? Now we have another reason to return to Owen County to research the land records in detail.
What a great day! We had beautiful weather to be out walking around a graveyard and finding some old relatives. Thank you, John and Martha, for talking to us today! Just when you are ready to give up on finding additional facts, one of them shows up! Then, you get the ancestry bug again to keep searching. Now if Thomas and Elizabeth (John's parents) would do the same, we would be greatly appreciative! They lived in Surry County, North Carolina, so I think we will have to do a little planning for that trip. No last minute jaunt for that!
