The line at the local donut shop yesterday morning was longer than usual. I found myself standing there next to an older fella seated at a table and nursing a cup of coffee. He struck up a little chatter with a remark about the chance of storms and within a sentence or two related some "cyclones" of years past and mentioned the town where he was born.
That was the same town where my mother was born. To this day it doesn't have a population of 200. When I told him my mother was from there he asked her name. When I told him her family name, his eyes grew big. He introduced himself and I recognized the family name. My grandfather's sister had married into that family. Judging his age I asked if my great-aunt was his aunt or mother; his aunt he replied.
At almost ninety weathered years I met a "cousin" of mine. My great aunt was his aunt. He was amazed with my knowledge of the family and we chatted so long I figured my wife had already called the police to report me missing. He "recently" retired (five years ago) as a dozer operator and told his World War II story. He wasn't old enough to join the military until January of 1945. By the time he had finished basic training, VE day rolled around. So although he never left the States, he was technically a WWII veteran.
Had a good long talk. He's up at the donut shop every morning. I'm collecting so old photos to take with me and continue our chat. We live four blocks from each other.
A small world, indeed....
My Dad was a WWII veteran. He was still in Tactical Flight training (TBF Avenger) when the war ended. The thing is there was no guarantees, those guys put themselves at risk. It was by no means assured the Japanese would surrender.
My Uncle actually saw combat as a waist gunner in B24s. His airplane was shot down over Bulgaria; he bailed out and was a POW for several months. POW life was rough, definitely not a comedy routine like the TV show. His stories were enlightening , to say the least.
That's a great story, Paden. Chance encounters like that are one of the great things in life.
Yesterday I was about two minutes away from being done with feeding all the critters and inspecting the newborn llama when a car comes driving down the road that had had no traffic in the twenty minutes I had been there. It stopped, the driver's window went down and a fellow about 40 says, "Is there a cemetery close to here? I think I'm on the wrong road." I named one two and a half miles away. He wasn't sure of the name. So, I asked whose graves he was hoping to find. "Carl and Elma Hazen, he says." I told him that was definitely the right cemetery. They were my neighbors when I was a kid. I mentioned that their daughter had died last week at age 85. The guy says, "She was my grandmother." That did it. I told them to follow me so I could show them his great-grandparents graves, plus one set of his great-great grandparents and about 25 other relatives. We had a great chat at the cemetery where I learned a few things about his family and he learned far more than that.
As I started to leave the cemetery a pickup arrived and a couple began putting flowers on a few graves. I recognized the wife so went over for a chat. Her "husband" looked familiar but I didn't know his name. While chatting with them the first couple started to leave and pulled up by us to thank me again for helping them. As they drove off I explained who they were. The husband says, "Hazen, huh? My grandpa was Warren Hazen. Do you suppose I'm related to him?" I then explained that Warren and Carl were first cousins and gave some of the Hazen family history starting with Lincoln Orrin Hazen, the grandfather of Carl, Warren and many others.
Again, I started to leave but saw a Suburban pulling in and I knew who it had to be. I walked over to the lady getting out and said, "Hi, neighbor." She and her husband were our neighbors back about 1963 to 1966. That started another great chat, mainly about her family. As I'm one of the Trustees for the cemetery she asked about the rules on doing certain things there. I asked if I could get contact information for her brother in North Carolina. That's what was most valuable to me and I got his phone number. He has in his house a "secretary" type piece of furniture that he purchased from my grandparents in 1964. He told me about it several years ago and told me he wanted me to have it back when he was done with it. He's about to turn 80, so I've been meaning to find him for quite some time. Bumping into his sister was great good luck.
Karma. If I hadn't gone out of my way to lead the first couple to the cemetery and then spent time chatting with the second couple I wouldn't have met up with my former neighbor to get the contact information I had been trying to find.
Holy Cow, post: 373459, member: 50 wrote: ...Karma. If I hadn't gone out of my way to lead the first couple to the cemetery and then spent time chatting with the second couple I wouldn't have met up with my former neighbor to get the contact information I had been trying to find.
Cool story. This fella's family and my mother's actually left Tennessee at the same time, grub-staked in Parker Co., Texas at the same time...then farmed the sandhills in Hastings, OK at the same time....and then moved to Denver Corner outside of Norman here at the same time. The families are intermarried three of four places. I think I'm lucky we don't share last names.
I just had a "vision" of Gary Larsen style gag-joke about you and the cemetery:
Little guard shack at the entrance of a cemetery with a guy sitting in the guard shack reading a newspaper...
Sign above the guard shack window reads "DIRECTORY"...
....hey, it made me laugh!
Excellent, Paden.
That cemetery is about 1400 feet by 350 feet. Burials started in the early 1870's. Have a couple people buried there who were born prior to 1800. In the 1870's the percentage of the population who were septuagenarians and older was tremendously lower than today. I have no known relatives buried there. But, I can tell stories about roughly eighty percent of those buried there and connect the dots from this person to that relative to that other relative. When I was in grade school and high school we farmed on a quarter section directly across the road from the cemetery. Sometimes at lunch time I would wander over and study the graves while Dad took a nap. That probably helped to foster my interest in local history and the genealogy of my friends and neighbors. You can learn a tremendous amount about why your local environment is how it is and how it was influenced over the decades/centuries by the backgrounds of the residents.
So, maybe when I'm a septuagenarian I'll erect that little guard shack you dreamed up.
