2024 01 03 - IA Day trip

Picture: Osage IA

When we arrived at this cemetery, we saw a building with an auto next to it. Closed. So we just parked at the building and walked the cemetery for about 45 minutes. In the near freezing wind. We were not dressed for this.

As we are leaving the cemetery, BB remembers seeing a kios. But by now we need a restroom and this location does not have one on site.

Today we have the time so in a few minutes are back looking at the kios. Every grave is in alphabetical order. The people we are looking for are a couple of car lengths away from the kios with a huge family stone.

(We don't remember until later to look up the people I could not find on findagrave)

Picture: Park Cemetery - Nora Springs

When traveling, I tend to look at a map once and then drive in that direction until I am close. Then look again if needed. If my wife is with me, she will put on the GPS directions once we are close.

In this case, I had referred to this as the Nora Springs cemetery and we ended up here. Wrong cemetery.

Picture: Rock Grove Cemetery - Nora Springs IA

A couple of miles from the wrong cemetery, we are at the correct cemetery. We now have about 10 minutes until the sun sets.

We know what the grave marker looks like from the picture on findagrave. We drive through the cemetery looking but don't see anything really close. But we do get out and look. This cemetery has about a 1,000 graves so it is walkable if we had more time.

We see two stones that look similar, so we get out and look. The marker should be above the leaves with the top rounded / raised a little. So we should be able to see it from quite a few feet away.

When I get to the rear of the cemetery, I see a plac on the side of the shed. This location has a map with the names where they are in the cemetery. But no alphabetical list. So I do a video of the whole cemetery so that I can zoom in later to look at the names.

As my wife comes over to see what I am looking at, she sees the marker we are looking for ... just a few feet behind me.

And it does have a family maker that was not included in on findagrave. By now it is dark enough that I have to use the flash on the individual markers.