I have been trying to sit down and write this article for my blog for days. Today is the day.
I was in Syracuse and the surrounding area for a week and returned last Friday. It was a good trip. I got to spend the week with my husband and eat out every night (actually, I get tired of that pretty quickly). We spent the first weekend in Montreal. Neither of us had ever been there. What a beautiful city - clean, friendly and with a very interesting history. We did a guided walking tour of Old Montreal on Saturday. It is a very French city and 70% of the people are bi-lingual. Friday night we ate at a restaurant that served "rare horse" - I talked Bruce out of ordering it! But I had wild boar which tasted like pork ribs (as the waitress had assured me).
Back in New York, I did some roaming around the countryside of Cayuga and Oswego counties. One of the places I wanted to visit was the Ira Union Cemetery (also known as the White Cemetery or the Old Floridaville Cemetery) in Ira, so I headed in the direction of Ira
and Cato to look for it. The countryside alone was worth the drive. It was one beautiful farm after another, rolling hills, green and peaceful - the word bucolic seems to fit here. I LOVE the old barns. I thought about taking pictures of the best ones - but I don't know how I would ever have chosen. My current residence, Arizona is not known for its green landscapes - now mind you, we live in
a more central area of Phoenix that does have trees. We have a huge Aleppo
pine in our side yard, a Brazilian Pepper tree in the front and a pecan tree in the back. Plus
there are a couple of other big trees which help with shading, and palm trees. We also
have a green lawn.
In Cayuga county, the cemetery was close to Floridaville Road
and White Cemetery Road - that must be where the name came from :-) - in Cayuga County. I found it after many u-turns and traveling roads that seemed to lead nowhere. I stopped twice at little markets to ask directions. One in Plainville and another near a 'major' (two-lane) intersection. But, you know, if you want directions you are more likely to get them from people in a local market, not employees of a major gas station/convenience store. The Plainville market was in a very small area and a father and son helped me out. I did have my iPhone with Google maps, but sometimes the reception wasn't always available. There were also two old churches in Plainville. I wonder if either church was attended by the Lane or Rhoades families? One looked like it was now a home and the other was closed down.
I finally found the cemetery. The above is a picture of the (former church?) building that was within the cemetery grounds, near the gate. It wasn't open and no one was there, so I don't know what is inside. I was looking for the graves of my third great-grandparents, Roswell and Jerusha Rhoades Lane. I already had pictures of their tombstones from another source, but I wanted to see the site and placement of the graves and who was buried around them. These things can be important. I knew that Jerusha's father, David Rhoades (sometimes this name is spelled Rhoads or Rhodes, among many other spellings) was buried near them. But, where was David's wife, Jerusha Hitchcock Rhoades buried? She died one month after he did in 1834, so she should be there. There is no stone for her.
Above is a picture of the gravestone of Roswell and Jerusha. Roswell's name is on one side, and Jerusha's is on the other. The star you see in the picture is for his service in the War of 1812. The smaller stones on either side of the larger one say "Mother" and "Father."
This next picture is of the stone for David Rhoades. He has an emblem with a small American flag attached for his service in the Revolutionary War. It was put there by the DAR Chapter in Ypsilanti, Michigan, requested by Mary Ella Hazelton Childs, my great-grandmother. I do think there is space for David's
wife, Jerusha, next to his stone. Roswell's parents, Ezra and Sarah
Chapman Lane, were also in that area when they died, but no records of where they are buried exist. Now that I can see the whole area, I think there is space for them in this same plot.
If you look closely at this picture, you will see the Lane stone in the middle and a space to the left, then a square looking stone (more on that one ahead), a larger space and then David Rhoades' stone at the far left. There is also space on the other side of David's stone - plenty for three more people.
This last stone, pictured above, the square one between the Lane and Rhoades stones, is for Adelbert Lane, Roswell and Jerusha's youngest son, and his wife, Sarah Earl. Adelbert and Sarah still have living descendants in this area.
So, because I was able to visit this cemetery, I was able to prove to myself that there is space, albeit no stones, for Ezra and Sarah Chapman Lane and David Rhoades' wife, Jerusha. Does that mean they are buried there? No. Maybe some day I will hire a dowser. Google 'Dowsing' or check out articles by Brenda Marble ("Grave Dowsing: Basic Techniques for Dowsing Burial Sites" by Brenda Marble and Debbi Lehr, 2003). Or then again, maybe I will learn to do it myself.
