This is the epilogue from a white paper about my fraternal brother who died a few months after I found him.  I had always known I was adopted and I postponed looking for my biological families until the passing of my adoptive parents. Although I was too late to connect with two of my other older siblings, I am grateful to have met Patrick to find that he was a generous and kind individual.  Regardless, I have no regret waiting out of respect for the couple who chose to be my parents.

I have been retired now for a couple of years.  For a few hours every week, with the exception of the winter months, I work with a crew to clean up and restore cemeteries in our township.  We pull up overgrown bushes and dig up old stumps that are near and sometimes rooted directly over graves.  We are not in the business of disturbing burials although we have been told that there is a cremation burial that we will have to relocate in the Fall closer to that individual’s family.  Many of the headstones and monuments are in disrepair:  leaning to the side, sinking into the ground, hiding from view under years of shifting soil, or breaking in two having tumbled from their pedestals.  Here and there are tombstones for people who were born before the American Revolution.  We have excavated stones with only one date recording stillbirths, deaths at birth, and a testament to the hardships of living in the Old Northwest Territory.  “Blooming in Heaven” reads one stone of an infant from the nineteenth century.  One large family plot with an imposing monument and a cement border contains only a “Mother” headstone and a smaller burial stone of an infant.  These stones are perched on opposite sides of the plot; there are no other burials between them.  A more recent family plot has a headstone “Father” misspelled.  Was this a family joke or did they purchase the stone on discount?  Another nearly two-century old tombstone measuring about three-foot-tall is held upright by a tree trunk well over two feet wide that engulfs half of the stone and the engraving.  One very ornately engraved pedestal weighing about 800 pounds was discovered and then pulled out of a watery ravine more than 100 yards from the cemetery lot line. It was dragged back to township property where the marble base was thoroughly cleaned to reveal a name that has no match in this site or in the chronicles of the township.  What happened here?  Did the family relocate after her death and how did this very heavy stone get dragged so far away?  My take away from all of these stories is that this is not a cemetery on the itinerary of many family outings.

There are four cemeteries in the township.  One of these sites I worked a couple of weeks this last summer, has been closed to new burials for a number of decades.  There are no longer any remaining plots.  Nearly all of the once tall and proud family monuments have either fallen over or have shifted from their original pedestals.  Many of the individual headstones are buried or broken.  If you find one buried stone, chances are that there are others buried nearby under one to three inches of soil and grass aligned, side by side facing eastward, as Christian family burials have been plotted for centuries.   A few stones on the south side have started to slide into a ravine near a dirt driveway of an adjoining property.  One such stone reads:  Gone but not forgotten.  It is clear to those willing to search and clear away the heavy ground cover, that she has been forgotten.  These and many other stones are nearly invisible under the plentiful myrtle and Lilly of the Valley.  Both of these ground covers thrive in our soil.  Jerry, our former foreman, pointed out three tall headstones that are being resurrected by family members who have recently moved back to west Michigan.  They look out of place standing tall, although missing a few parts, and now more legible having been cleaned from the dirt and the moss covering them for a century.  It is thought that burials are no longer visited after 75 years from the time of theie interment.  This cemetery seems to bear out that timetable.  In the northwest corner of this old cemetery is a pauper’s gravesite.  There are no stones, no wooden crosses, nor any placards that indicate the location of the bodies or the names of our township’s poorer residents.  Trees have begun to take over this grassy space.  I think about my maternal ancestors settling near where I now live in this township, and the Scottish, Irish, and those with “mixed heritages” with the local Pottawatomi and Ottawa, all needing a final resting place.

I enjoy digging in the dirt.  I especially like it when the lifting gets heavy.  I also look forward to going on my hands and knees to excavate a stone first with a shovel, then with a trowel, followed by a soft brush.  It is community service, but it feels like archaeology.  Unlike all of my compensated work over decades spent in hospitals and rehabilitation centers, I can enjoy the fruits of my labor of sweat and dirty hands and legs within a few hours.  I wonder if my love of archaeology is fueled by my need to know my own history and where I fit in. 

I have identified maternal relatives buried in what is locally called the Rockford Pioneer Cemetery. It’s just about five miles down the street from where I live.  Like one of the township cemeteries I’ve been restoring, this cemetery has been full for years, but all of the tall burial stones have been knocked down and broken and dragged around by some delinquent teenagers attending the high school just a parking lot away.  The Rockford Historical Society, in order to clean up the site, reorganized the stones often resetting them in the ground most likely yards away from their actual burials and remains.  There is now a walking path through this now public park that most likely traverses across many of those buried here.  The park invites the public to take a stroll and try to read the fading names and dates of the early settlers of this community. One such name is Phoebe Smith, 13 February 1778-26 to May 1857.  Phoebe Smith, was a full-blooded Native American, most likely Pottawatomi, and my maternal great-great-great-great grandmother.  Her husband, James Smith, formerly Schmidt, is also buried here.  This side of my birth family is not at all WASPish; unlike Patrick’s and my shared fraternal side.

Its only in the small hours of the night do I think about my own mortality.  All of my known older siblings, Patrick, Gordon, and Constance, have not lived beyond my current age.  My life, interestingly, has included a number of life-threatening afflictions.  I credit my wife Diane for saving my life multiple times; we should all be fortunate to marry an observant, loving middle child.  I don’t feel old, but I have learned not to push myself beyond certain physical boundaries.  For one thing, I don’t run, much less race, anymore.  This has been life changing for me having had running define my ethos going back to high school and for years afterwards.  Not running at all is one thing; forget about competing against others for time and placement on legs and hips that have sustained multiple injuries and repairs.  Reflecting on my life and its challenges, I firmly believe, however, that it has been my competitive spirit that has pushed me forward and through situations that may have been perceived by others as devastating and, for many, enough to finish them off.

Overall, it did take years to learn the lesson of backing off at times and taking the long view, but I’m finally catching on.  Having grown up as an only child in middle class America in socially and financially conservative west Michigan in the mid-twentieth century, I assumed my true worth would be reflected in my work, my work ethic, my financial situation, my best running times from the 400 meters to the marathon, and in the success of my off-spring.  I now realize how unfair that latter measurement is to my offspring and theirs and, of course, to me.  One takeaway after seventy plus years is that much of our destiny is out of our hands.  Maybe learning to roll with the punches or simply walking away from confrontation is a lesson I need to continue to practice.

In our own way, Diane and I have excavated my birth family and my ancestors from decades and even centuries of abandonment and dilapidation much like the cemeteries in our township.  We have gone from not even having my birth family’s last name to digging up history and stories that have been long forgotten.  No surprise to me now is how I have come full circle, at least geographically, to an area in west Michigan that one line of my ancestors settled six generations before I unknowingly found my way back.  I recognize that some of these family stories have been intentionally buried and not all of these stories are admirable.  Regardless, these stories can shine a light back on where I’m from and, if I pay attention, an enlightened pathway forward.