Nebraska is where I began catching the cemetery bug. I went on my first true “hop” with my best friend, Christi, in Blair. It’s a small town not far from Omaha, where a number of my Claar ancestors once farmed and are now buried. That was in 2009.

When I went out to Omaha this past September, I already had a list of “must see” cemeteries. But since we’d also planned a road trip to Lincoln, I hoped to visit a few I knew nothing about.

Christi wanted to make a stop in Greenwood (population of about 550) to visit the Bakers Candies store. Founded in 1987, Bakers makes mouths water with their famous meltaways. After sampling a few, I could see why.

Greenwood Memorial Cemetery is less than a mile from Bakers Candies, so it wasn’t hard to find. Like many Nebraska cemeteries, Greenwood is located amid cornfields. This one, however, is fairly large with around 1,500 burials and is well maintained.

I couldn’t find out much about the history of Greenwood Memorial Cemetery. I saw burials dating back to the 1860s to just a few months ago.

There’s something quite different about walking through a Nebraska Cemetery from a Georgia one. The landscape is mostly flat, with open sky that seems to last forever. And it feels like you can see for miles.

You also don’t often see grasshoppers this size lurking about.

One of the first markers I noticed was for Margie Armstrong, who died at the age of 20. I’m not sure what kind of material it’s made out of or how it was made.

I was intrigued by the design of the top because it looked like it had been damaged. Upon consulting Margie’s memorial on Find a Grave, I saw what it originally looked like. I don’t know if it was vandalized or if the harsh Nebraska winters had damaged it over time.

I couldn’t find out anything about Margie at all. But there was a marker for another Armstrong that might be related to her. Ralph Armstrong died over 25 years before Margie, but his stone also made me look twice.

I’d never heard of the U.S. military having a Balloon Air Service, although I was aware that they had experimented with balloons for observation during the Civil War. After I got back home, I did a little research and discovered Omaha’s brief history as a site for the U.S. Army Balloon Corps.

Fort Omaha’s Signal Corps Balloon School operated in the years before World War I, experimenting with the new Baldwin Airship Signal Corps-1 (SC-1), which became the first powered aircraft purchased by the Army. This happened just months before the Army purchased the now-proven Wright Flyer (pioneered Orville and Wilbur Wright).

The Fort Omaha Balloon School flew the SC-1 until around 1911, when it was no longer serviceable. Officers and enlisted men continued to train until the school was abandoned in October 1913. It was turned into a government weather station until the outbreak of World War I.

Since the English, French and Germans had been using “kite”, or captive balloons for battlefield observations for years, the U.S. Army again set up its balloon training operations at Fort Omaha and tried to play catch-up. About 16,000 young men received training and balloonist skills that they would use on the battlefield in France.

Duty was dangerous not only because balloons were favorite targets, but due to the fact they were filled with highly flammable hydrogen gas. Observers were forced to jump from the basket more than 100 times but had few mishaps partially due to their excellent training. Seventeen U.S. balloon companies sent to Europe saw action on the front, 13 of them having been organized at Fort Omaha.

At 27, Ralph Armstrong enlisted in the Army on July 29, 1918 and was assigned as a private to the 53rd Balloon Company, stationed at Fort Omaha. A few days before the signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918, the 53rd was moved to Camp Morrison, Va. About a month later, Ralph was honorably discharged and returned to Nebraska. He died in 1944.

As is often the case, there were several graves of young children. Some even died at birth. This was likely the situation for the Leesley twins, Teddie and Eddie. They died in infancy in 1916.

Nearby is the grave of their brother, Francis, born a few years later in 1922. He died soon after birth but his twin sister, Alice, survived. She married and had children, spending much of her life in Greenwood. She died in 2009 and is also buried at Greenwood Memorial Cemetery.

The children of James and Laura Elliott also died at young ages. A native of Wisconsin, James served for three years in the Union Army as part of the 25th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, Company I. They participated in the siege and capture of Vicksburg, serving under Sherman in his campaigns against Meridian, Atlanta, Savannah, and the Carolinas. The 25th lost more men than any other Wisconsin regiment, but mostly due to disease.

According to the Nebraska State Census taken in 1879, James and Laura were farming in Tipton, Nebraska (just south of Greenwood) with their children, Edwin “Eddie” and Mary “Mamie”. In December, Mamie died just a few days short of 1880. Brother Eddie died only a few months later. In the 1885 Nebraska State Census, Laura is listed as a widow with two children, Ford (born in November 1880), and Blanche (born in 1883). Both James and Laura (who eventually remarried) are buried in Greenwood Memorial Cemetery.

The last grave stone I’m going to feature was one I spotted on our way out. The wording on it was too surprising to breeze past.

Thanks to a 2012 newspaper article, it wasn’t hard to find out what happened to poor George.

My visit to Greenwood Memorial Cemetery was just one of many “hops”  during my visit to Nebraska. But it was the beginning of many discoveries that I’ll be sharing in the weeks to come.

 

In January, it will be two years since I started this blog. I’ve written a lot of posts but one from March 2014 that continues to stick with me was about the short life of Joshua Stulick. Today I’d like to revisit his story and share some of the results of that post.

I also now have a face to go with his name.

In the spring of 2013, I visited Sharon Baptist Church Cemetery in Forsyth County, Ga. to photograph someone’s grave for Find a Grave. As usual, I took pictures of other graves there with the intention of checking to see if I might post them on Find a Grave as well. And there were indeed some that had not been documented. This is something I do at almost every cemetery I visit.

Several months later, I got an e-mail from a woman named Jenn thanking me for photographing a grave and creating a memorial for Joshua Stulick. His name didn’t ring a bell, so I looked up his memorial and learned that he’d died in 1992 at the age of 19.

Jenn wrote:

Thank you so very much for your post of a grave for Joshua Stulick. I have looked for so very long to find him. At last I have it because of you. There was no goodbye when he was tragically killed. Now at least I can visit. Thank you! It means a lot.

Whoa.

I soon learned that Joshua was murdered in a park in Staten Island, N.Y. in April 1992. His murder remained unsolved for many years.

According to The Staten Island Advance, one night Joshua went to a friend’s house for drinks after finishing his shift in the hospital cafeteria where he worked. Later, he and some other people went to Ingram Woods (a nearby park).

On April 28, 1992, Joshua’s body was found, covered in the park’s underbrush. He’d been fatally stabbed in the throat and wrapped in the interior lining of a car trunk.

Suspicion fell on Joshua’s co-worker, James Russell, already on probation for a felony assault conviction. In that case, Russell had plead guilty to a 1989 attack.

Police suspected that the trunk lining Joshua was found wrapped in belonged to Russell’s car, but no other evidence was found. Russell swore he knew nothing about what happened, was released and the case froze up.

In 2005, an anonymous witness came forward. Based on what she said, Russell was arrested and eventually charged with second degree murder. He initially plead not guilty.

In December 2007, Russell changed his story, claiming he and Stulick were drinking and doing drugs that day before heading for Ingram Park. He said they started to “fool around with knives that we each had, playing karate moves and lunging and sparring with each other.”

“Joshua lunged at me as I was swinging my arm with the knife, and I cut him,” Russell admitted. “To my horror, the knife cut into Joshua Stulick’s throat.”

He said he covered the body in Ingram Woods and fled, thinking “everyone would blame me no matter what I said.”

Staten Island Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Rooney sent Russell to prison for a minimum of three and a half years up to a maximum seven years under an agreement by which Russell pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter. Had he been found guilty of second-degree murder, he might have faced a lifetime jail sentence. As part of the deal, he was not allowed to appeal his sentence.

Joshua’s mother, Kathleen Melchers, spoke at James Russell’s sentencing:

Your actions of cold violence not only took my son’s life, but to drag his body onto a car trunk liner and lay him on the ground behind a rock for two days until being found by someone walking a dog, is an act of sensitivity coming from a wicked heart and extreme lack of respect for the human body and soul.

As a mother of a son myself, I felt disbelief and anger when I read about Russell’s plea deal. Russell’s sentencing took place in 2007 so he’s probably out walking the streets again now.

While I didn’t know if anyone would contact me after I published the original blog post, that didn’t matter to me. I felt that I was meant to photograph Joshua’s grave for a reason and writing about him was simply something I had to do.

A few months later, I was surprised to find that Joshua’s mother, Kathleen (who goes by the name Kathy), had left a comment on the blog.

The longsuffering was a walk no person should have to go through but God had his hand on many people and assigned a God appointed team in Staten island, which I still count them all dear to my heart. The Team was truly assigned to Joshua’s case. The God I serve took care of the judgement, hurting hearts, and the ability to forgive. I will see him in heaven; no tears or hurts every again. I have learned to love others in a special way as I know that is what Joshua would want me to do.

I had worried about Kathleen in light of Russell’s incredibly light sentence. Enduring the violent death of your own child is something no parent should have to go through. But her words showed me that while her journey had been difficult, she had turned to God for healing and understanding. And found it.

Joshua’s godmother, Bonnie, left a comment this past August:

I came across this article today and could not believe someone cared that he did die so young. He was my godson and very precious little boy. Have been thinking of him because his birthday is coming up on September 10th, he would have been 42 this year. My only peace is that he is with our Lord and hopefully singing for the angels.

Joshua’s friend and fellow bandmate, Mike Arguelles, left a comment just a few months ago:

I went to Curtis High School with Josh and briefly played in a band with him, ( “Section 8” ) He was a good guy and his own person. I last spoke with him over the phone shortly before he was to move down South. The move never got to happen. I often think about Josh, ( he was a good friend to me ) how he got cheated his due time and my heart goes out to his family and fellow friends. May you rest in peace, Josh. See you on the other side, Brother.

Jenn, who originally contacted me about Joshua, recently sent me an email to share some of her memories of him. While it had been many years since his death, she continues to try to come to terms with it.

When I finally saw a photo of his grave…it hit me like a brick. It’s not that I didn’t know he was dead, but I suppose finally a more tangible look at it hit me very hard, for a very long time after that. I have never stopped grieving. And all I will ever have of him is that photo on your site. Not even of him, but of his grave.

He was beautiful. And despite his pitfalls (I know he was not a saint), he was kind. He cared more about what was best for me than what he wanted. That jacket they found at the park was one he used to give to me when I was cold.

I have to say that I have a wonderful family of my own. A husband and tree precious children, but this loss has never ceased to ache. To say my heart was broken is a gross understatement; it was shattered and that cannot be mended.

Kathy left another comment this past October and I responded by telling her I was planning on writing an update to my original blog post. I asked if she might send me a picture of Joshua. She doesn’t have a scanner but was able to photograph a paper picture of Joshua that she had. I was thrilled to finally see his face, to get a glimpse of the young man I’d written about.

Joshua’s story points me to a truth I’ve known for a while. A name and a date on a gravestone is just the tip of the iceberg of the life of the person it represents. Each person has their own unique story, has impacted the lives of others in some special way. Every life is special.

Even if it ends long before it should have.