Rose Hill Cemetery

Whew!  It is catch-up day for On Sooner Trails!! 
This is another cemetery that I have been to many a time.  Chickasha peeps know Rose Hill Cemetery primarily as the premier walking spot.  Rick and I have traversed the walking path often in the past, though not for some time.  This cemetery also happens to be right next to where I work! 
Michelle and I were out doing errands today when Rose Hill was admitted to the conversation.  I was mentioning that I need to find one of the graves there; I told a lady I would get a picture for her.  Michelle's first impression was 'piece of cake,' just walk over there and do it!  I incredulously asked if she had SEEN Rose Hill, to which she responded in the negative.  So we loaded up in the car and headed that way! 

Rose Hill Cemetery is a BIG cemetery.  I am sure there are much larger ones in the world, but this is the largest to which I have ever been.  It is also BEAUTIFUL!  It is oddly situated in the middle of town, though one can assume that when it first opened it was nowhere near the middle of town.  Old, ornate tombstones sit next to new, plain ones.  A person could easily just lose themselves in wandering the cemetery discovering names and reading inscriptions.  We did not have that luxury, however.  It was already growing dark by the time we got there and we quickly found ourselves in a shadowy world of stone and uneven ground.  Our adventure was short-lived, but fun as it always is to wander in a cemetery! 

Michelle looks WAY too serious posing with the flowers!  :-)

Eakly Cemetery

It seems a bit odd to post about going to the Eakly Cemetery as if it is a novel adventure.  I am fairly certain that Eakly Cemetery was the first cemetery I was ever in and DEFINITELY the one I have spent the most time in!  On October 18th Rick and I headed for the metropolis of Eakly, trying to beat the twilight.  It was time to 'freshen up' Mummy's headstone for her birthday!

I know.  It doesn't look terribly exciting.  I didn't get any new flowers; I just used some stuff that I keep stashed in the trunk for spur-of-the-moment Eakly trips.  Rest assured, she is perfectly happy with the scarecrows!  The other peeps that visit the Eakly Cemetery must think we are a 'special' family because her headstone is decorated for fall year-round!  Anyone who knew Mummy understands, though.  :-)
I got a few pics of family graves and a couple of other interesting ones, but it was late in the day.  One of these days I plan to go out there and spend several hours taking pictures.  There are a lot of graves on the FindAGrave site that don't have pictures with them from the Eakly Cemetery.
I also meant to hit up the Historical Marker on the highway on the way back home, but zoomed right past it without even thinking!  Maybe next time!

When I was younger I always found it quite amusing that there was a water tower IN the cemetery!  :-)

Labor Day Adventures

I am FINALLY updating my blog with my Labor Day Adventures!  Well, mine and Hope Marie's!  I was off work and decided it was a good day to get some more work done on the Laverty Cemetery.  Hope Marie was my unwitting accomplice!  She actually agreed to go before she knew why on third earth I called her and asked her to go to a cemetery with me.  Hhmmm...
Anyway, we made a day of it.  We started out with some yummy fuel from Long John Silver's and then headed out to Norge.  We had to stop and get some pictures for my first Historical Marker for the blog!!

Pretty cool, huh?  It is surprisingly lacking in details though!
We then continued down the road for my Laverty Cemetery trip numero dos.  I had hoped to finish up the pics of the cemetery, but alas, despite the fact that it was much cooler than it had been, it was still quite warm and Hope wasn't up to hanging out in it for very long. 

We got quite a few pics in and then ended our adventure for the day.  I have yet to upload the pics to FindAGrave (I know, Slacker!!).  Maybe the next trip out there I will complete the circuit of the cemetery.

Update on First Visit to Laverty Cemetery

Just from the few pictures we got at the Laverty Cemetery on August 6th, I was able to create 59 new memorials on FindAGrave.com and upload 104 pictures (some of them duplicates as in the case of a husband and wife sharing a headstone) including one picture that made a lady's day (it was a picture she had specifically requested of her aunt's headstone).

Yay!  I am a bona fide FindAGrave.com contributor!!  :-)

Also kudos to Michelle for being quite likely the only person on earth to get the reference to my "country twin" in my first post!!  :-)

Laverty Cemetery

I have been doing TONS of genealogy research lately; both on my family and on my friend Michelle's family.  One of the AWESOME sites that I utilize is FindAGrave.com.  It is a database of cemeteries and those interred in them.  All the information and pictures are gathered by volunteers.  On Friday I signed up to be a volunteer photographer in my area and I uploaded some pictures right away of some of the family headstones at Eakly Cemetery. 

Saturday (8/6/11) I decided to get a jump on taking pics of headstones.  This called for a nearby cemetery, preferably pretty small to get started, and one that needs a lot of pictures.  Laverty Cemetery won out!  I had never heard of Laverty Cemetery until I started at my current job (funeral home).  We have buried several people out there since I started, but I had not personally been to any of the committal services.  Therefore I was curious to see this cemetery hitherto unknown to me, yet so close to where I have lived my whole life!

Rick got volunteered to be my adventure partner for the day.  The cemetery was as easy to find as everyone had told me at the funeral home.  It is in what was Laverty, Oklahoma--out past Pioneer.  Once you get past Pioneer School basically just keep going straight until you see the cemetery on your right.

Immediately upon our arrival, we noticed that this is a much smaller cemetery than we had been expecting.  The smart thing to do seemed to be to ignore the list we had of headstones sans pictures on the website and instead just walk up and down the rows taking pictures of all the headstones!  How long could it take?

It was a good plan.  We were moving quickly.  Unfortunately, so was the mercury.  It was so hot out there that the camera I was using was almost too hot to handle!  In the end, we completed the perimeter and saved the two middle sections for a cooler day.

While we did run across some interesting and some old headstones, the remarkable event was the fire we could see building to the south.  It looked BAD!!

When we finally dove for the blessed creature comfort of our car air conditioning, we decided to see how far we could follow the trail to the fire.  After crossing a bridge that looked like it belonged at Girl Scout camp on a hiking trail (and still would be scary to WALK on) and meandering aimlessly through time-forgotten back roads for some time, we somehow ended up headed in to Ninnekah.  At that point we gave up the hunt and drove to Daddy's house and thus our adventure ended.

A New Blog About Adventures in Oklahoma

My name is Betsy Phillips.  I was born and raised in the greatest state in the union:  Oklahoma!  I have lived my entire life in Grady County.

I recently decided that it was time to stop talking about exploring Oklahoma and get to it!  Besides, lets be real--I will never traipse around Europe or see Victoria Falls and meet my country twin.  I can, however, wander the Oklahoma trails and discover the fun facts behind the historical markers.  And lets not forget all the fun and excitement of cemeteries!  Every tombstone with a story to tell!

So this is my new blog.  I will chronicle my adventures in Oklahoma.  Happy Trails!  :-)