One of this year’s “I have cancer” goals involves working less on my passions in life and spending more time with people. (I am an introvert and people wear me out.)
I do love spending days in the garden or crocheting for my grandkids. However, it’s been a wonderful year of reconnecting with my past and old friends. From my class reunion in July to family picnics, cheer competitions, and the latest cemetery tour, I have truly enjoyed being out and about.
My meditative mornings include memories from the past. Like the television commercial for the 1960s western series called “The Riflemen,” I relate to the Riflemen’s son, Mark McCain, when he said, “I wasn’t really looking back, just remembering back.”
Remembering back. I love it. Last week we had a whole day of remembering back.
My extra-large German-Russian clan occupies a large portion of my memories. Over the years I have collected a Rubbermaid tote of books, papers, documents, and photos of family dating back to North Dakota homesteading days. I’ve followed my family trees on both sides to the 1600s, a trail from North Dakota to Russia with origins in Germany.
On Sept. 10, my cousin (twice), Marion, and my brother and his wife, Curt and Kim, took a road trip to McIntosh County. The homeland. Planning for this trip began earlier this year, but my illness prevented us from following through in April.
It was all good.
We picked the perfect day to travel to Wishek for a relative hunting journey, here and beyond. The greatest impetus was a search for my father’s stillborn brother’s grave.
The baby died on April 10, 1925. According to stories from two different aunts, my grandmother lost this second son rather tragically. One aunt said she had to work too hard that year. The other aunt said she was chasing pigs and one ran right into her belly. Either way, the baby died. The day’s work continued. The sun went down. The child’s body was wrapped in a black shroud and buried.
All the years following my discovery of this child, I felt the need to find this uncle’s grave.
In conversations that followed, my curiosity about where my great-grandparents were resting brought us to plan a cemetery tour. My goals included documenting the locations of our ancestors in case my grandchildren or great-grandchildren take an interest in their family history.
The cemeteries are scattered all over McIntosh County. Each sacred place was surrounded by fields and rolling prairies delineated with fences and identified with wrought iron arches spelling names of forgotten parishes or townships.
The day began at the St. Luke’s Cemetery, slightly northeast of Highway 13 when driving through Wishek. It’s across from a feedlot around the corner from the infamous Wishek sausage grocery store, Stan’s.
Buying sausage was our first stop.
We visited my mom and dad. Marion’s parents are right next to them. They are surrounded by many aunts and uncles and another generation of great aunts and uncles above them. I cannot even try to name them all. We fondly refer to St. Luke’s cemetery as “The Kaseman Cemetery.”
Not to ignore the living members of our family, we had a very nice lunch with my cousin, Carmen, joined a bit later by Aunt Deloris and another cousin, Michelle. (Here is where I have to apologize to the rest of my relatives for not seeing them before we headed out to the country. Sorry.)
Lunch proved to be quite valuable as we learned of another family cemetery. Thank goodness for Google Maps. We added a stop to our itinerary.
From Wishek, we traveled to St. John’s Lutheran Cemetery near my grandfather’s farm. There we found my paternal great-grandparents, Bernard and Paulina Kaseman.
Inside a small wrought iron fence with an overgrown tree shading the headstone, we discovered the grave of my grandfather’s sister. Roselin died at the age of six when her dress caught fire after playing with matches near a haystack. (That’s the story we heard.)
From that point we headed towards “The Meidinger” cemetery, New Kassel E & R. As we headed west on gravel roads, we followed Google Maps to the Kassel Cemetery.
It was an unfamiliar cemetery. It’s not the one I knew located along Zeeland Road. We stopped anyway but didn’t find any relatives (that we knew of) in this final resting place.
Continuing westward, in the distance St. Andrew’s steeple rose against the summer sky. We had planned on stopping at St. Andrew’s.
This was the only cemetery with a surviving church. The buildings were open and welcoming to visitors. The cemetery’s stones held many familiar surnames, but no immediate family members.
However, the importance of St. Andrew’s, according to Marion, was this church was the mother of all the rest of the churches in the area. (You can learn more about this historic site here: https://www.talkingtrail.com/tricountyalliance.)
Onward to New Kassel E & R Cemetery. This cemetery lies in the heart of many former Meidinger farms — my mother’s family. My great-grandparents, grandparents, and many other relatives are laid to rest here. One of my early childhood memories was attending this church and thinking, “Wow, I’m related to nearly everyone in this building.”
The final stop was Friedan’s Cemetery — our newest discovery. It was in this cemetery we found our oldest cousin, Eunice June. At nine months old, there was an accident while mom was scalding milk. She died from her injuries.
Oh, the stories contained on the stones planted so long ago on the prairie we call home. The oldest stones, many with German verses, are so weather-worn that the dates are barely discernible. Two graves were marked with iron crosses, a very German skill. Two more were concrete blocks, square and etched by hand.
We marveled at how many infant graves are inside each of those fences.
But by now you may have realized we did not find any clues to the location of the grave of the child who would have been our uncle.
It was an amazing day, but it made me sad to think of the lost baby and how my grandmother carried years of silent grief. In my heart, I want to give this baby a name so he is remembered. It isn’t my place to do so.
Until we meet again in heaven little one.
PS: Thank you to St. Luke’s Church in Wishek for the upkeep and care of these so sacred cemeteries.
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