"This potato tastes like Lake Erie," announced Biz.
Sometimes she competes with me for Oddest Random Comment. I said,"Well, I was wearing the shirt I bought in Erie when I grilled it."
"When I was little, I spent a lot of time swimming in Lake Erie," she explained. "I don't know why, maybe these potatoes were grown nearby. But it kind of tastes like I remember the water tasting."
"Anyone want my potato?" Michelle asked.
I glanced at the calendar. "So, you guys remember a couple of months ago, when we chased down that Shoemaker story about the Fairy Grave? Back when the pandemic started? I'm thinking that soon, we go out and make another attempt."
"Why not?" said Biz. "You know where we're looking?"
"I have a better sense of it than I did last time," I said. "In the story, the grave with the fairies was Lotte Schwartz, and they came out and danced around her grave on a full moon. I did some checking after the last trip, and found a Lena Weise from Germany who died around the right time. Shoemaker sometimes changed the names, but left clues behind."
"So what are you thinking?" asked Tif.
"Both begin with L. In German, Schwartz is the word for black. Weiss is the word for white."
Biz grinned. "So when are we going out?"
"Well, the next Friday family dinner night in June 5. And it's also the next full moon. Anyone want another lake potato?"
When I walked into the staff meeting, the New Boss was talking. I'd managed to arrive late, but I couldn't believe it mattered---The staff meetings had always been notoriously unhelpful, for the most part.
"Clinton County goes green on Friday," she said. "We're waiting on guidance from the state library, so not much will change for us immediately. We'll continue as we are for the moment. Once we do open up, we'll still have to take precautions."
"It's green," I said,"Which means the woods, as in we're not out of them yet. We'll have to put some new signs up with the expectations."
"We'll have them," she said. "Also limiting access to the building. Some people aren't going to be happy about that."
Lightning flashed outside my window. Lock Haven was having one hell of a thunderstorm, part of a series lasting several days. In the middle of the Bald Eagle Mountains, rain seems to get trapped along the mountain range and just keeps going for days until it burns itself out. So, the Coronavirus wasn't enough, we had week-long storms, too.
I picked up my coffee and walked around my desk, to the Henry Shoemaker books directly across. I pulled Indian Steps and flipped to the fairy story. Might as well brush up on it.
I read through the story again, and it was about the way I remembered it. Lotte Schwartz---In real life, probably Lena Weise---Had come from Germany with her fiance and a bag full of twelve fairies. She'd released them into the forests of Swissdale area---Shoemaker doesn't usually give precise locations, but he leaves clues---And the have supposedly lived there ever since. On a full moon, they danced around her grave.
I found a detail I'd missed the first time----The fairies were said to come out specifically in June. Which made Friday the perfect time.
I pulled the cemetery index for Woodward Township. I love the CCGS cemetery indexes. Used to be I had to go through the cemeteries physically, one grave at a time. In 2003, I'd had to hike through every single one in the Lock Haven city limits, a feat I hope never to repeat. The indexes made it easier.
I found it on page 116. Lena Weise, buried under a monument with her family. She'd died in 1908, which also checked out; it was only a few years before Indian Steps had been published. Section Fifteen, Row Two, Plot Five.
I checked it on the map---Along with the helpful listings, the CCGS had included maps of each cemetery. Section Fifteen was a tiny little spot, down beside the road. Last time around, we'd probably wandered uphill of it some, and not really gotten down that far. Also, Paul had been scared off by a random glove.
I walked back to the back room to see if there were any books to process. Tracey was sitting at her desk, looking as elegant as she always did. I said,"Did you match your mask to your sweater? Jesus, Tracey....I always think I look pretty okay, and then I come in here, and you dress so nice I feel homeless."
Tracey laughed. "It's nothing."
"I matched my mask to my shirt today," I said. "Both have aliens on them."
"Wow, way to go," said Tracey.
I studied her. "I think you're being sarcastic, but it's hard to tell with you."
I sat back in my chair. I was wearing my shirt with the coordinates for Area 51 on it. I could go for a good UFO sighting right now. For a couple of months, I'd been just working on whatever ghosts and history I could do without going anyplace. I'd love a UFO. I'd love a good Bigfoot sighting. I'd be thrilled with a water monster. Hell, I'd even be happy with a random gravity hill.
Jim stepped in. "In the rain, my roof began leaking. Is it considered irony that the only thing that got wet was the 1972 flood newspaper edition?"
I laughed. "I'm sure I have several spares. Everyone donates that edition, and thinks it's unique. Maybe it's the ghosts trying to tell us something."
"So, the county went green today," commented Tif at dinner.
"Yep," I said. "I wore my green Aliens made me do it shirt to celebrate."
"How was work?" Michelle asked.
"Busier than usual today. I had to explain to several people that no, green doesn't mean we just reopen again. Whole bunch of people called in for books, though."
"Biz said she couldn't make it tonight," said Tif. "She got called in to work."
I nodded. "I know. We're gonna have to take photos for her, and I told her I'll think of another adventure to take her on soon."
"We went out before, and couldn't find the grave," said Tif. "What makes you think you can this time?"
"I've done some digging," I said. "Last time, I was just searching for one that fit the general description. This time, I know which specific one I'm looking for."
"Fairies aren't real," Paul informed me.
"That's true," I said. "It's what you call folklore. Those are old stories that sometimes have a bit of truth to them. I've been looking into this one....Lena Weise has to be the right person. The names match, she was from Germany, lived and died about the right time."
We drove out after dinner, and pulled into the Swissdale Cemetery. There was a lawn care truck blocking the way. I climbed out of the car.
The driver recognized me. "Oh, hi," he said. "You're that guy in the newspapers, aren't you? Let me just pull this up ahead."
I got out of the car and waited while Michelle pulled the Prius up onto the turnoff. I was looking down at the cemetery. The others came walking down toward me.
"It really is pretty out here," commented Tif.
"The early settlers were from Switzerland, with Germany following soon after," I said. "They chose this area because it bore a resemblance to their native land."
"What grave are we looking for?" asked Michelle.
"The name is Weise," I said. "I'll also settle for Ramser as a nearby stone."
"There's a Weise down there," she said.
I'd seen it, but I wanted to let someone else have a little fun. We walked toward the monument.
"There," I said. "I see it. Right behind the monument.....Lena Weise."
I walked over and knelt down beside the grave. Lena Weise, 1833 to 1908. The others caught up with me after a moment.
"This is the one," I said. "The grave where fairies dance."
"According to the story," said Tif.
"Well, I been thinking about that," I said. "Sometimes, folklore has some truth to it. There are mentions in the story of the fairies taking over the forest, bothering panthers and eating trees. And it occurred to me that some kind of bugs could account for that. An invasive species, something along those lines...."
"Fairies are an invasive species?" asked Tif.
"That theory could even account for the full-moon-dancing thing," I continued. "With an infestation of bugs, people could have seen them around the grave, and the stories about fairies started to spring up."
"Like fireflies," suggested Michelle.
"Like fireflies," I agreed. "Folklore often has some truth to it, if you do a little digging."
"We could come back tonight, when the full moon is out," Michelle suggested.
"We could," I said. "We could, at that."
June 5. Nine PM. Full moon.
We pulled into the cemetery in the dark, and I climbed out of the car. "Moon should be coming up right over there," I said. "Probably still behind the clouds at the moment."
We walked over to the Weise grave. Easier to find the second time around---If I'd tried it in the dark the first time, I never would have found it. Paul was following along with Michelle's cell phone, recording a pretend YouTube video.
"Okay. So. We're here at the fairy cemetery. There's fairies that come out and dance in the full moon, and we're looking for the fairy grave...."
Every time he did this, he sounded a little like me. I knelt beside the grave and pulled out a large sheet of paper and a crayon.
"Let's get you a rubbing, little man," I said.
"I want to do it!" said Paul.
"Okay. I'll hold the paper."
I held the sheet down while he rubbed purple crayon across it, coming up with a neat little rubbing of the name and dates. I rolled it up, and said,"I'll take it to the car."
As I walked across the cemetery, something hit me in the head. I glanced up, and saw a bug flitting past. I was about an inch long, dark colored. A nearby monument was covered with dozens of them.
I ran back to the car and traded the rubbing for my backpack. I was fishing out my camera and flashlight as I went back across the cemetery. I stopped and took a photo, holding the flashlight beside the camera and using the beam as a guide, the way I do for ghost-hunting.
"What are you doing?" asked Michelle.
"Think I found our fairies," I said.
"Those ugly bugs?"
"There's a lot of them out here. They look like some kind of roach. A hundred years ago, by torchlight on the full moon, it's real easy to see how a bunch of these things flying around could have started stories of fairies in this cemetery."
"Hunh," Michelle said. "You're right."
"Found them. After all this time, I found my fairy grave."
"Can we have some ice cream?" Paul asked.
"Yep," I said. "We can have ice cream."
As we walked back toward the car, Michelle said,"Now you have to find something to do when Biz can come."
I thought about it.
"Well," I said,"There's a story of a haunted grave outside Lock Haven...."
Friday, June 5, 2020
Monday, June 1, 2020
Yellow County: Baird Necessities
My son and I have this little tradition. When the weather is nice, we go out in the evening and take a walk around the neighborhood, looking at the sky for UFOs. Hey, what's your idea of quality time?
He's been discovering new routes lately, exploring a bit more. During the quarantine, we went down and explored around the local paper mill. Recently, he'd been turning our route to go up to Highland Street, moving across the four-hundred block.
We occasionally see people out while we're hunting for aliens, though fewer since the quarantine began. I saw a couple on their porch, and as we drew closer, I realized I knew one of them.
"Oh, hi, Danielle," I said, staying six feet away. It's amazing how fast I'd readjusted to that. "I didn't realize you were living in my neighborhood."
"Hi, Lou," she said. "Yep, moved here a couple months ago. You still doing paranormal investigations?"
"Of course. Paul," I called down the sidewalk,"Hold up. Don't get too far ahead." I saw the little red lights on Paul's scooter slow down and turn around in the dark.
Danielle turned to the guy she was with. "Lou did an investigation for us a couple of years ago. When we lived in the old hospital."
"Old Teah Hospital," I said. "I remember it well."
"We're having some activity here," she said. "You guys want to come?"
"Once it's safe again," I said. "In the meantime, I'll start the historic research and let you know. Now that I'm back in the library, I should be able to find out some stuff."
Paul and I walked on. He said,"See any aliens, Daddy?"
"Not yet, buddy. But maybe we'll get a ghost."
Our limited reopening coincided with my eight-year anniversary. Way back in 2012, I'd had my first day of work at the Ross Library. It was May 24, 2012, and I'd stood upstairs in the Sloan Room with my co-worker, Kendra.
"If ever there was a place to start over," I'd said,"This would be it."
Now, the library itself was starting over slowly. We'd managed to reopen the library for curbside service, by appointment, in the lobby. People could order books and pick them up. This had gone over less thrillingly than we'd expected; we'd been averaging two or three patrons a day. I'd have a hard time deliberately getting COVID-19.
Before I headed out for my lobby shift, I grabbed the city directories and a form off my desk. I'd created the form myself after I'd gotten tired of scribbling information on post-its. Filling that in, I was able to gather all of the details of a property on one place.
Adam was in the lobby when I got there. "I'm here," I said. "You're relieved."
He stood up. "Been slow, man," he said. "Hope you got something to keep you busy."
I grinned behind my mask. "I think I can manage."
I'd begun the week wearing my ghost shirt, but now had switched to Bigfoot: Social Distancing World Champion. I sat down and began to look up the address in the city directories. A city directory is kind of like a reverse phone book, with the addresses and the names of the people who lived there. A lot of people attempt to do property research but have no idea about the city directories.
Starting at about 1915, I began checking each one, and came up with a list of names. People who'd lived there throughout the years. It took twenty minutes. Then I slipped back inside and exchanged the city directories for the cemetery records.
"How's it going out there?" Barb asked as I walked past the desk.
"Slow day," I said.
I had seven volumes of cemetery indexes. Starting with the earliest residents of the house---A family named Campbell---I checked each index to find which cemetery they were in. Each check only took me a few seconds, but it adds up. I had like twenty names to go through.
An old guy without a mask opened the door. I said,"Sir, we're requesting everyone who comes in wear a mask."
"What?"
"Sir, you have to have a mask on to come in."
"Thought I heard you were open."
"In a limited way, sir. Not our rule."
"Then I'll just leave these here." He set a bag of books down on the floor and walked off.
I transferred the books to our quarantine table and sprayed disinfectant on everything he'd touched or been near. How bad is it when you get alarmed because someone came in not wearing a goddamn mask?
There's always something---If a house is truly haunted, I'll always find a tragic death someplace. I found this one buried in Cedar Hill; Christian Basinger had died at age thirty-eight.
That was interesting. Once I got done with the cemetery indexes, I ran back in and traded them for two of the index drawers, BA and PO. I checked one of the families that showed some promise---They'd been in the house for almost forty years---But no, all of them had lived long lives and died elsewhere. Christian Basinger, a butcher with a family, had died just after leaving the house, at age thirty-eight. He had no obit, which left the cause of death a bit of a mystery.
I ran down the other names just to be thorough, but Christian Basinger was it. He was the most likely.
I looked up as Adam came back. "Is my hour up already?"
"You're taillights, man. Been slow?"
"Actually," I admitted,"It got a little exciting there for a while."
The bear probably outweighed our Prius. And, hell, it was a small one. The bear, I mean. Also the Prius. My wife swerved around it as we drove up the Renovo Road.
"Whoa!" she said. "A bear!"
"You see that, Paul?" I asked. Paul was already leaning out of his seat to get a glimpse of the bear, which was darting off to the north side of the road.
"Yes!" Paul said, excitedly looking at the bear. It was a black one, probably a few months old.
"That's a cub," Michelle commented. "I hope the mother's not around."
"We can outrun a mother. Stay in the car."
We'd decided to take a little drive on a pleasant Sunday afternoon. Paul had been somewhat enthusiastic about exploring old cemeteries recently, and abandoned cemeteries could reasonably be assumed to not be crowded. So I'd suggested a trip to a new one, the Youngwomanstown Cemetery in Chapman Township.
It only took us a few minutes to find it, once we got into North Bend. The small cemetery was down on a road beside the river. I got out and walked into the field.
The stones were all small, and arranged in neat rows. "This may be the oldest cemetery in Chapman Township," I commented. I glanced into the forest. "Hell, there's some stones piled in there, just left up against the trees. I'm gonna have to e-mail Justin. I wonder if CCGS knows about this."
"That's kind of sad," said Michelle.
"There are people with markers here who were moved," I said. "The Quigley family was moved to the New North Bend Cemetery, but their markers left behind."
I walked into the woods and examined the stones there. All broken, propped up against the trees. They hadn't been cared for. I debated internally for a moment.
Then I picked up one of the smaller footstones and slid it into my pack.
It's just been lost out here. If I take it, I can research and then preserve it, find out more. It's not doing anyone any good sitting in the woods.
Over the years, I've gotten used to the average weight of my pack. I can tell when I add something. Add a book, and it feels heavier. Take out my ghost-hunting stuff, I can feel the difference. Add a footstone, and it weighs a thousand pounds.
I walked back to the car. Paul and Michelle were waiting for me.
"Hi, Daddy," said Paul.
"Find what you wanted?" Michelle asked.
"We'll see," I said.
When Paul came into my office, he glanced at the stone. "Is that a gravestone?" he asked calmly.
It says something about my parenting that my five-year-old takes this sort of thing in stride.
"Yeah, it's a footstone," I said. "I brought it back from the cemetery. I'm going to check into it and figure out who it belonged to."
"Can I help?"
"Let's get to work."
The bathroom is conveniently right next to my office. I fetched the shaving cream.
"Remember how we did this at the old railroad station? It works with gravestones." I sprayed shaving cream on the stone, and we rubbed our fingers across it, taking off the excess and letting it fill the crevices. We wound up with two bright white letters.
"K," said Paul.
"I think it's an R. It's hard to tell with old ones. Is that a D?...."
"I think a B."
"It does look like a B. Let's wash this off."
When we'd hosed off our hands, and I'd cleaned the excess shaving cream off the stone, I picked up the index book for Chapman Township. I'd compiled a decent collection of usable books at home in my office---Not as good for research as the ones at the library, but still not bad. During the quarantine, I'd been really glad I'd had them.
"Rosannah Baird," I said. "She was a little girl, I think a year old. She died in 1833."
"How do you know that?" asked Paul.
"Daddy can find these things out. See, it says right here."
"Are you going to keep the gravestone?"
"I might hang onto it for a while," I admitted,"While I research."
"I think we should keep it," he said. "Is it time for Alien Patrol?"
I looked at the window. "Yeah, it's getting dark. And we have a message to deliver tonight."
"A message?" he asked.
"Yep. Remember the woman who was talking to me about ghosts the other night? I did the research on her house, and we're going to drop it off in her mailbox. So we have an extra mission tonight."
I walked out to the picnic table and sat down. In the parking lot, a car had pulled in. SaraLee got out, carrying two cups of coffee. She sat several feet away and slid one across the table to me.
"Thanks," I said. "Next time, it's my turn to buy."
"Taylor said you like it black," she said. "She said you used to order it saying things like 'Black as my soul.'"
I laughed. "I did, though that's been a while. How you doing?"
I was wearing my LHPS hoodie and my I'd rather be ghost hunting shirt. She was wearing her grey shirt with the black ghost on it.
"Doing okay," she said. "It's good to get out and talk to an adult for a change."
"I hear you. Thanks for dropping by. Once we're up and running, I may have another investigation for is. Got a report from Highland Street."
She smiled. "Sounds good."
"I'm here. Been slow?" I walked down the steps into the lobby.
Jim stood up. "Got one book waiting on a patron. Otherwise, I'm making real progress reading this novel."
"Yeah, I got some stuff to read, too. Been working my way through the Southern Reach Trilogy."
"Yell if you need anything," he said, and went off to his garage.
I'd also brought some other stuff to work on. With a little creativity, I'd discovered that I could get an amazing amount of research done while I was working the lobby. I sat down with the index drawer for BA, and checked for Rosannah Baird.
Nothing. According to the cemetery index, she seemed to have been one year old when she'd died, so it made sense that there was no obit. I found an entry for a Baird genealogy, and discovered that the family had a genealogy book someone had compiled.
It only took me a minute to go get it out of the Pennsylvania Room. It wasn't like we were swamped with customers anyway.
Okay. With the genealogy, I found that Rosannah had been the daughter of Benjamin and Ellen Baird, who were buried in a different cemetery over in Hyner. I checked on Benjamin in the index file, and I found out that he'd died in 1851, and was the son of William Baird, the earliest settler in Renovo.
Rosannah had been his granddaughter.
I'd rescued the marker from the first family to settle the area.
"So you had fun exploring the train station ruins, little man?" I asked as I rode our bike across the alley. Riding in the back trailer, Paul grinned.
"Yeah! That was fun!"
"When we get home, I'll show you where it was on the Sanborn Map. How about that?"
"Okay! Can I have a popsicle?"
"Sure. Got a color preference?"
"Surprise me."
A car pulled up, and it was Danielle driving. Paul commented,"Look, Daddy! It's your friend!"
Danielle smiled at me out her window. "Hi, Lou," she said. "Thanks for the history. We'll be glad to have you come investigate once it's safe."
"Great," I said. "I'll e-mail you."
"You gonna find a ghost, Daddy?" Paul asked.
"Sometime, little man," I said. "Right now, though, we got something to do."
I patted the dirt down and stood up, stepping back to view the little stone under the tree. Paul stood beside me, studying it critically. I'd buried it under our pine in the backyard, with his swing, within view of the porch Ida had died on.
"Looks good," I said. "I think we'll leave it a while."
"I like it," agreed Paul, and he held one thumb up.
"Yeah," I said. "It looks...right there."
"Yeah," said Paul. "It does."
He's been discovering new routes lately, exploring a bit more. During the quarantine, we went down and explored around the local paper mill. Recently, he'd been turning our route to go up to Highland Street, moving across the four-hundred block.
We occasionally see people out while we're hunting for aliens, though fewer since the quarantine began. I saw a couple on their porch, and as we drew closer, I realized I knew one of them.
"Oh, hi, Danielle," I said, staying six feet away. It's amazing how fast I'd readjusted to that. "I didn't realize you were living in my neighborhood."
"Hi, Lou," she said. "Yep, moved here a couple months ago. You still doing paranormal investigations?"
"Of course. Paul," I called down the sidewalk,"Hold up. Don't get too far ahead." I saw the little red lights on Paul's scooter slow down and turn around in the dark.
Danielle turned to the guy she was with. "Lou did an investigation for us a couple of years ago. When we lived in the old hospital."
"Old Teah Hospital," I said. "I remember it well."
"We're having some activity here," she said. "You guys want to come?"
"Once it's safe again," I said. "In the meantime, I'll start the historic research and let you know. Now that I'm back in the library, I should be able to find out some stuff."
Paul and I walked on. He said,"See any aliens, Daddy?"
"Not yet, buddy. But maybe we'll get a ghost."
Our limited reopening coincided with my eight-year anniversary. Way back in 2012, I'd had my first day of work at the Ross Library. It was May 24, 2012, and I'd stood upstairs in the Sloan Room with my co-worker, Kendra.
"If ever there was a place to start over," I'd said,"This would be it."
Now, the library itself was starting over slowly. We'd managed to reopen the library for curbside service, by appointment, in the lobby. People could order books and pick them up. This had gone over less thrillingly than we'd expected; we'd been averaging two or three patrons a day. I'd have a hard time deliberately getting COVID-19.
Before I headed out for my lobby shift, I grabbed the city directories and a form off my desk. I'd created the form myself after I'd gotten tired of scribbling information on post-its. Filling that in, I was able to gather all of the details of a property on one place.
Adam was in the lobby when I got there. "I'm here," I said. "You're relieved."
He stood up. "Been slow, man," he said. "Hope you got something to keep you busy."
I grinned behind my mask. "I think I can manage."
I'd begun the week wearing my ghost shirt, but now had switched to Bigfoot: Social Distancing World Champion. I sat down and began to look up the address in the city directories. A city directory is kind of like a reverse phone book, with the addresses and the names of the people who lived there. A lot of people attempt to do property research but have no idea about the city directories.
Starting at about 1915, I began checking each one, and came up with a list of names. People who'd lived there throughout the years. It took twenty minutes. Then I slipped back inside and exchanged the city directories for the cemetery records.
"How's it going out there?" Barb asked as I walked past the desk.
"Slow day," I said.
I had seven volumes of cemetery indexes. Starting with the earliest residents of the house---A family named Campbell---I checked each index to find which cemetery they were in. Each check only took me a few seconds, but it adds up. I had like twenty names to go through.
An old guy without a mask opened the door. I said,"Sir, we're requesting everyone who comes in wear a mask."
"What?"
"Sir, you have to have a mask on to come in."
"Thought I heard you were open."
"In a limited way, sir. Not our rule."
"Then I'll just leave these here." He set a bag of books down on the floor and walked off.
I transferred the books to our quarantine table and sprayed disinfectant on everything he'd touched or been near. How bad is it when you get alarmed because someone came in not wearing a goddamn mask?
There's always something---If a house is truly haunted, I'll always find a tragic death someplace. I found this one buried in Cedar Hill; Christian Basinger had died at age thirty-eight.
That was interesting. Once I got done with the cemetery indexes, I ran back in and traded them for two of the index drawers, BA and PO. I checked one of the families that showed some promise---They'd been in the house for almost forty years---But no, all of them had lived long lives and died elsewhere. Christian Basinger, a butcher with a family, had died just after leaving the house, at age thirty-eight. He had no obit, which left the cause of death a bit of a mystery.
I ran down the other names just to be thorough, but Christian Basinger was it. He was the most likely.
I looked up as Adam came back. "Is my hour up already?"
"You're taillights, man. Been slow?"
"Actually," I admitted,"It got a little exciting there for a while."
The bear probably outweighed our Prius. And, hell, it was a small one. The bear, I mean. Also the Prius. My wife swerved around it as we drove up the Renovo Road.
"Whoa!" she said. "A bear!"
"You see that, Paul?" I asked. Paul was already leaning out of his seat to get a glimpse of the bear, which was darting off to the north side of the road.
"Yes!" Paul said, excitedly looking at the bear. It was a black one, probably a few months old.
"That's a cub," Michelle commented. "I hope the mother's not around."
"We can outrun a mother. Stay in the car."
We'd decided to take a little drive on a pleasant Sunday afternoon. Paul had been somewhat enthusiastic about exploring old cemeteries recently, and abandoned cemeteries could reasonably be assumed to not be crowded. So I'd suggested a trip to a new one, the Youngwomanstown Cemetery in Chapman Township.
It only took us a few minutes to find it, once we got into North Bend. The small cemetery was down on a road beside the river. I got out and walked into the field.
The stones were all small, and arranged in neat rows. "This may be the oldest cemetery in Chapman Township," I commented. I glanced into the forest. "Hell, there's some stones piled in there, just left up against the trees. I'm gonna have to e-mail Justin. I wonder if CCGS knows about this."
"That's kind of sad," said Michelle.
"There are people with markers here who were moved," I said. "The Quigley family was moved to the New North Bend Cemetery, but their markers left behind."
I walked into the woods and examined the stones there. All broken, propped up against the trees. They hadn't been cared for. I debated internally for a moment.
Then I picked up one of the smaller footstones and slid it into my pack.
It's just been lost out here. If I take it, I can research and then preserve it, find out more. It's not doing anyone any good sitting in the woods.
Over the years, I've gotten used to the average weight of my pack. I can tell when I add something. Add a book, and it feels heavier. Take out my ghost-hunting stuff, I can feel the difference. Add a footstone, and it weighs a thousand pounds.
I walked back to the car. Paul and Michelle were waiting for me.
"Hi, Daddy," said Paul.
"Find what you wanted?" Michelle asked.
"We'll see," I said.
When Paul came into my office, he glanced at the stone. "Is that a gravestone?" he asked calmly.
It says something about my parenting that my five-year-old takes this sort of thing in stride.
"Yeah, it's a footstone," I said. "I brought it back from the cemetery. I'm going to check into it and figure out who it belonged to."
"Can I help?"
"Let's get to work."
The bathroom is conveniently right next to my office. I fetched the shaving cream.
"Remember how we did this at the old railroad station? It works with gravestones." I sprayed shaving cream on the stone, and we rubbed our fingers across it, taking off the excess and letting it fill the crevices. We wound up with two bright white letters.
"K," said Paul.
"I think it's an R. It's hard to tell with old ones. Is that a D?...."
"I think a B."
"It does look like a B. Let's wash this off."
When we'd hosed off our hands, and I'd cleaned the excess shaving cream off the stone, I picked up the index book for Chapman Township. I'd compiled a decent collection of usable books at home in my office---Not as good for research as the ones at the library, but still not bad. During the quarantine, I'd been really glad I'd had them.
"Rosannah Baird," I said. "She was a little girl, I think a year old. She died in 1833."
"How do you know that?" asked Paul.
"Daddy can find these things out. See, it says right here."
"Are you going to keep the gravestone?"
"I might hang onto it for a while," I admitted,"While I research."
"I think we should keep it," he said. "Is it time for Alien Patrol?"
I looked at the window. "Yeah, it's getting dark. And we have a message to deliver tonight."
"A message?" he asked.
"Yep. Remember the woman who was talking to me about ghosts the other night? I did the research on her house, and we're going to drop it off in her mailbox. So we have an extra mission tonight."
I walked out to the picnic table and sat down. In the parking lot, a car had pulled in. SaraLee got out, carrying two cups of coffee. She sat several feet away and slid one across the table to me.
"Thanks," I said. "Next time, it's my turn to buy."
"Taylor said you like it black," she said. "She said you used to order it saying things like 'Black as my soul.'"
I laughed. "I did, though that's been a while. How you doing?"
I was wearing my LHPS hoodie and my I'd rather be ghost hunting shirt. She was wearing her grey shirt with the black ghost on it.
"Doing okay," she said. "It's good to get out and talk to an adult for a change."
"I hear you. Thanks for dropping by. Once we're up and running, I may have another investigation for is. Got a report from Highland Street."
She smiled. "Sounds good."
"I'm here. Been slow?" I walked down the steps into the lobby.
Jim stood up. "Got one book waiting on a patron. Otherwise, I'm making real progress reading this novel."
"Yeah, I got some stuff to read, too. Been working my way through the Southern Reach Trilogy."
"Yell if you need anything," he said, and went off to his garage.
I'd also brought some other stuff to work on. With a little creativity, I'd discovered that I could get an amazing amount of research done while I was working the lobby. I sat down with the index drawer for BA, and checked for Rosannah Baird.
Nothing. According to the cemetery index, she seemed to have been one year old when she'd died, so it made sense that there was no obit. I found an entry for a Baird genealogy, and discovered that the family had a genealogy book someone had compiled.
It only took me a minute to go get it out of the Pennsylvania Room. It wasn't like we were swamped with customers anyway.
Okay. With the genealogy, I found that Rosannah had been the daughter of Benjamin and Ellen Baird, who were buried in a different cemetery over in Hyner. I checked on Benjamin in the index file, and I found out that he'd died in 1851, and was the son of William Baird, the earliest settler in Renovo.
Rosannah had been his granddaughter.
I'd rescued the marker from the first family to settle the area.
"So you had fun exploring the train station ruins, little man?" I asked as I rode our bike across the alley. Riding in the back trailer, Paul grinned.
"Yeah! That was fun!"
"When we get home, I'll show you where it was on the Sanborn Map. How about that?"
"Okay! Can I have a popsicle?"
"Sure. Got a color preference?"
"Surprise me."
A car pulled up, and it was Danielle driving. Paul commented,"Look, Daddy! It's your friend!"
Danielle smiled at me out her window. "Hi, Lou," she said. "Thanks for the history. We'll be glad to have you come investigate once it's safe."
"Great," I said. "I'll e-mail you."
"You gonna find a ghost, Daddy?" Paul asked.
"Sometime, little man," I said. "Right now, though, we got something to do."
I patted the dirt down and stood up, stepping back to view the little stone under the tree. Paul stood beside me, studying it critically. I'd buried it under our pine in the backyard, with his swing, within view of the porch Ida had died on.
"Looks good," I said. "I think we'll leave it a while."
"I like it," agreed Paul, and he held one thumb up.
"Yeah," I said. "It looks...right there."
"Yeah," said Paul. "It does."
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