Flashback Friday...Origins of an Accidental Genealogist

My mom died in 1999 (sigh)

My dad lived in the house until 2002.

For those few years, when I would come home for a visit...I would get off of I65 and no matter what time of day it was or what was going on...
I would drive past the house and turn south on 55 and stop at Orchard Grove.

It was just something I did. 

I didn't feel I had to...or that it was because that was where my mom "was."

I just went there...

Walked up to that headstone and would have a moment.

Sometimes I left a rose.

Sometimes I picked weeds.

Sometimes I just sat down and   watched the grass grow, leaves blow or sunset.

Sometimes I just ran my hand across the top of the stone or knelt down to study the etching. 

Sometimes I was quiet, sometimes I talked to mom.

Sometimes I laughed out loud and sometimes I cried.

A few times I hummed or sang a song.

Sometimes I would wander and wonder about the other headstones there.

Somewhere along the way, in one of these wandering moments, I came across a headstone that was leaning up against that big tree that sits on the hill.

It is so weathered with time, you could barely make out that it says Vandercar.
Looking closer, I could make out the inscription:

 "Martha"... 

"wife of A.S. Vandercar"

I stepped back and felt a little piece of my heart open.
The stone was leaning up against the tree because it had broken off it's base and was separated from it's original spot.
Separated from it's grave.
Separated from Martha.

Now, this was before the genealogy bug had bitten me, but up until then, I had been pretty good at figuring out the family tree...
but, I could not, for the life of me recall or remember ever hearing about a Martha Vandercar.

Now, if we had the name Smith, Jones or any other more common name, this might not be so unusual.
But it is Vandercar.
There are several (and now that I am doing genealogy...more than I ever imagined)...but to be in a graveyard where my mom, with the same name, is buried and to have a lost Vandercar
...was very sobering to me.

I wondered....
Who are you, Martha?
Where are you?
Who were your people?

It struck me that maybe, years and years ago...
Martha's daughter probably came to her mom's grave and stood beside it with a broken heart...
just like I did years later when I stood next to Helen's grave.

Martha probably was loved and missed by her daughter...
just like my mom was loved and missed by her daughter.

Martha mattered.
Just like Helen mattered.

It drove me a little crazy...
that I did not know who Martha was...
or where she belonged in this cemetery.

At that moment, I told Martha...
I am going to find you.
I am going to find out who you were and where your headstone goes.

I owed it to Martha.
I owed it to her daughter.

And so began my 10 year quest of searching for Martha Vandercar...
and the origin of becoming an "accidental" genealogist.



Directions to here:

Tune in to find out what the 10 year quest uncovered.
not to mention....
(finding a whole lot of other people and stories along the way)