Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Deardorf Cemetery - Another Volunteer Day for Find-A-Grave



This request involved quite an adventure to reach the Deardorf Cemetery also known as the Christilla Pioneer Cemetery. GPS coordinates placed it in the parking lot of Chief Obie Lodge on Scouter's Mountain. Having been a scouter for 45 years, I knew this was not the case and that the cemetery was actually in a canyon to the west of the Lodge.



I took my camera and a bottle of water that Deb left in the car (thank you Deb... it was 95 degrees at the time I started my hike), and started over the edge of the canyon on a "Cat" trail that was scraped in the forest floor.



After decending into the canyon, I came to a barbed wire fence and a gate that was locked across the trail to the entrance. The gate was easy to climb, so I did.

When I reached the cemetery, it too was fenced and gated. I tried cracking the combination of the lock, but, if course, I could not. I found a bucket and thought maybe I could climb over the gate but I am too short and it was too high. I had visions of hanging from the top of the chain link fence like "Scarecrow" and decided against the jump.

I was discouraged that I had walked that far and it seemed that I would not be able to finish my quest. Alas, I decided to look at my list of names and see if any of the markers were visible from behind the fence... and guess what... every name was on the two tall obelisk monuments seen in the photo! Deb says that is Family History carma...

This is one of the names that I was asked to find. In all, I was able to add 10 new names to the online cemetery and upgrade a few more with corrected dates, names, and photos. Not bad considering there is only 29 marked graves (supposedly) and I had to do it all from behind the security fence!

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