26 • The Beacon May 23 , 2024

Our daughter , her husband , their four children and their dog will come here Saturday forenoon to stay overnight and head home Sunday late afternoon . Their lives are busier than ours , but it all has to do with priorities . That should be with a capital P . Our daughter has taught me to focus on priorities .

One of my big to-dos before they come on Saturday is to clean the house , weed the flower bed , plant impatiens and clean the camper , where some of them will sleep .

Our plan is for Saturday after a lunch of tacos or taco salad , we eight will go in two vehicles to Memory Gardens . We will park near the Garden of the Last Supper and hunt for our son Jeff ’ s gravestone . It used to be easy to find because it was near a row of shrubs , but they were removed , so we have to hunt for it . One of the grandchildren will spot it . We will read the flat marker , which refers to “ Beloved Son , Brother , Husband & Father .” One of the children will place an artificial flower down into the hole Grampy makes with a screwdriver . Then all of the children will surround the marker and have their picture taken . This is just what we always do .

The first time I went alone to visit our son ’ s grave after the row of shrubs was removed , it took a long time to find his marker . That made me think there ’ s not much more pitiful than a mother trying to find her

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son ’ s grave . But , of course , there is : a mother who has no grave or marker to visit because of her child ’ s death during a war or something like that .

Next , we go to find Glenn ’ s brother Bill ’ s flat marker . At first the children were confused when they saw a marker nearby with our names and birth dates on it , until we explained we already had those cemetery plots and marker bought in advance .

On our way to the middle garden to find another marker , we always pass the grave markers for Glenn ’ s parents , Marjory and Harold Kinkade Jr . A different child puts a flower in front of their gravestone . Nearby is Glenn ’ s mother ’ s parents ’ marker : Samuel Ernest and Sarah Elva Cochran . We tell the children , as they add a flower to that marker , that Grampa and Gramma Cochran were known by their middle names , Ernie and Elva . Two of Glenn ’ s uncles also are buried at Memory Gardens , younger brothers of his mother , Ernie and Dale Cochran .

Near Glenn ’ s parents ’ grave marker is one for Mary Lang , a beloved member of our church . We ’ ve been known to put a flower there . Then we cross the road into the middle garden and hunt for Grampa and Grandma Kinkade ’ s marker . Usually , everyone is looking below where it is , and I ’ ve been the one to find it . There is a beautiful flower arrangement already there , placed by their daughter , who is Glenn ’ s young aunt .

We remind the children Grampa and Grandma Kinkade ’ s house is on Roscoe Street , which we drive past on our way home . Sometimes we have told our grandchildren that the house was near third base for the old lower baseball field . Once we told them that Grampa was a mailman , and there was an article in the Tribune about a dog that would wait for Grampa to come to his place and then would follow Grampa around town on his route and return home at the end of the day .

The last cemetery we will visit , before going for ice cream as a treat , will be the Old Caldersburg Cemetery at the end of Maple Street . The children automatically know to go down over the hill to find an old marker that has been repaired by members of the Genealogy Society . The top half of the stone was flat on the ground when Glenn and his mother found it . This is the oldest marker we will visit , for Margaret Porterfield ( Remember a painting by Thomas Kinkade about a Porterfield Cottage ?) Echels , who was the mother of Mary Echels , who married Thomas Kincaid . Glenn tells the children each year about Margaret being their eighth great-grandmother .

Last year we took the children to South Lawn Cemetery , showed them the big Kinkade marker , told them about those relatives and got their pictures standing near it . We showed them many graves and decorated them with

one flower .

Sometime within the next couple weeks , Glenn and I will go to South Lawn Cemetery and decorate Kinkade family members ’ gravestones , those for Campbell family members , older markers with the last names of Hall and Stewart , plus markers for dear friends Dal and Lois Donovan , as well as Wilma Meek . Then we have three or four other cemeteries to visit also .

Last year Glenn told our grandchildren stories about some of the ancestors who are buried at South Lawn Cemetery , like great-great-grandma Caroline Henry Kincaid , who willed her property to Milligan Memorials so she could have a giant gravestone , and great-greatuncle Warner and Thelma “ Zoe ” Campbell Hamilton , who lived across the road from the Wills Creek covered bridge .

While we ’ re taking our grandchildren to visit cemeteries and telling them about the people we are honoring , we ’ re sharing our relationships and also building different relationships with them . serving from 4:00 to 7:30 pm . Donations only 32473 US 36 , Walhonding , Ohio 43843

Listen to the school children and community youth ( Pillar of Truth Chorus ) as they sing throughout the evening .

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