Graveyard Rabbit of Southeastern Wisconsin

This site gets few updates during this time of the year. I can’t really do much cemetery research or photography due to the bitter cold and covering of snow. But, I will be back come Spring since I usually have some backlog of stuff I need to check out. Happy Winter!

I found this tombstone when I was visiting St. Francis Borgia Cemetery in Cedarburg, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin.

Here is one of my favorite photos.

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It was taken a few years ago at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee. I had gone in the fall and the colors make it look really beautiful and peaceful. The cemetery itself has a lot of visuals like this due to the fact that it is very large and full of large trees and monuments. Unfortunately, I took the photo a long time ago on an old camera and I no longer have the original. This one is in decent condition, but I wish I had a larger, higher-quality one.

I chose to do a multiple tombstone post. This is a view across part of Holy Cross Cemetery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A lot of my Polish ancestors are buried here including my ZALEWSKI, TROKA and SZULTA family. It literally looks like a “City of the Dead” as it goes on and on.

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If anyone happens to have ancestors buried in the Cedarburg, Ozaukee County, Wisconsin area, you’re in luck. I just noticed that Cedarburg has most of their cemetery records available online. This only includes city cemeteries, not church-related cemeteries (with included Find-A-Grave links.)

• Immanuel Cemetery
• Zur Ruhe Cemetery
• Hilgen Cemetery
• Cedarburg Cemetery
• Immanuel Heritage Cemetery
• Founder’s Park

The records (as of this writing) are from October 2007. They include maps of some of the cemeteries and also much information on the burials. For the burials, it includes: burial date, name (include first, last, middle initial), birth date, death date, cemetery, section, lot, and grave number.

Happy Memorial Day, everyone!

St. Mary's Cemetery

American Legion

Richard Zalewski - WWII

Ran across an article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel this morning about new burial options at some of the area’s largest cemeteries, Natural (or Green) Burials.

According to the article:

All burials in this area will include a biodegradable coffin, or a shroud and other container, and no toxic embalming or concrete vaults. No individual markers will be used, but names and dates will be engraved on large boulders in the 3-acre cemetery, planted in native prairie flowers and grasses.

Currently, it’s being offered at Forest Home Cemetery (which I posted about earlier) and Prairie Home Cemetery in Waukesha, Wisconsin. For us genealogists, don’t worry about not being able to find a loved one.

There’s one other new twist on age-old burial practices: Anyone visiting the prairie cemetery will get a GPS device and help finding the grave.

As a genealogist, I would miss the headstone and other things that are so helpful to photograph for your research, but you can get a photo of the engraved stone.

I do find it interesting and I love that it’s better for the environment. I’ll have to keep an eye on it around this area. I know they’ve been doing it around the country for awhile now.

[ Article Link ]

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Immanuel Cemetery, Cedarburg, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin

We ran across this interesting inscription when we were searching for the headstones of my wife’s ancestors in Boscobel, Wisconsin. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a photo of the front of the stone, just the back with the inscription. I can only assume it’s the headstone of Elizabeth Armstrong as is noted.

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I did some research on the event a found a few things. Google Book Search turned up a writeup on the subject mentioning Elizabeth Armstrong. I can usually include an excerpt into my blog, but this book won’t let me, so you can see it by visiting the book here.

There is also a writeup over at the Wisconsin Historical Society’s website:

The Indians kept a hot fire for two or three hours, while concealed behind the stumps or out-buildings. Capt. Stone’s company were mostly absent, and the fort numbered only some fifteen effective men. The women and children were panic-stricken, crying and wringing their hands. At this stage of affairs, Mrs. ELIZABETH ARMSTRONG, wife of JOHN ARMSTRONG, of Sand Prairie, in this county, finding the Fort but poorly supplied with balls, divided the women into parties; the first , who could load fire arms, constituting the first division; the second were to run bullets. Mrs. ARMSTRONG delivered to them a short effective address, telling them that it was but worse than folly to give up to fear in such an emergency as the present one – that they could expect no sympathy from the Indians, and to go to work immediately and do their best to save the Fort. They obeyed, and under her direction performed miracles.

You can view the full article here or read more about her during the Black Hawk War over at Wikipedia.

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I run across these types of grave markers a lot in the southeastern Wisconsin area. Most of them are almost impossible to read after the wear and tear of the weather. This particular one is hard to read even without the spooky lighting that my camera captured. I’ve rarely seem markers like this that were readable, but I have seen them. They usually just list the persons name and year of birth and death. I’m assuming that these may be the “default” markers that are given to people that couldn’t afford a full headstone or were without family.