Christi and I headed west on I-80 intending to spend the night in Malvern at an Air B and B that used to be a small train depot. I looked on the Find a Grave app and noticed there was a cemetery in Avoca just off the interstate on our way there. So we pulled off to take a look.

Graceland Cemetery (also known as Avoca Cemetery) is becomingly situated on a hillside that overlooks  terraced farmland.

Graceland Cemetery is situated in a pretty spot on a hillside.

According to Find a Grave, Graceland has about 2,500 burials and appears to be well cared for. No footstones piled under a tree! I was unable to find out exactly when Graceland was established. But burials date back to the 1850s.

Avoca was established around 1869 with the construction of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad through the area. Avoca is named after Avoca, Ireland. With a population of around 1,600, it has a quaint Main Street that we saw when we dined at the Classic Cafe later.

What I did find was a lot of information about Graceland’s rather small but rare octagonal-shaped chapel. Iowa only has two such shaped cemetery chapels. Over the years the building has been used to hold funerals, and has acted as a temporary mausoleum, sexton’s office, and storage space.

Graceland Cemetery Chapel was built in 1875.

According to the application for it to be made a National Historic Site (which happened in 1986), “Because of its siting and octagonal form, Graceland Chapel has a picturesque quality, and this aspect is further enhanced by an effective combination of decorative elements drawn from the Italianate, Greek Revival, and Gothic Revival styles.”

Graceland’s chapel was once in danger of being demolished.

So why build an octagonal-shaped chapel rather than a traditional four-sided one? Apparently, there was an “Octagonal craze” that started in the 1850s by a man named Orson Squire Fowler. Already a noted phrenology practitioner (interpreting the shape of the human head) and author of sex manuals, his 1848 book A Home for All, or A New, Cheap, Convenient, and Superior Mode of Building was embraced by many and it went through nine printings. Think of it as a sort of Victorian-era feng shui.

Orson Squire Fowler published books on phrenology, building octagonal houses, and sex.

Fowler lectured in Dubuque, Davenport, Iowa City, and Keokuk in 1856, and his writings were well known in Iowa for years after that. It may have been his belief that “to impress an audience, a speaker requires that they be gathered around him” which inspired the unknown architect of Graceland’s chapel to choose the octagonal style.

According to the application, by the summer of 1984, the chapel had deteriorated to such a poor state that the city was talking about demolishing it. That spurred the creation of the Newton-Avoca Historical Society, a group of locals who successfully raised enough money to restore the chapel.

The chapel was locked up, but by looking in the window we could see panels with historical information on them. So I’m guessing they hold programs at the chapel from time to time.

Two of the first markers I saw was for a mother and child, Rachel Bergen and her infant daughter, Mertle.

Mertle Bergen died only nine days after her mother.

Born in Indiana, Garret Bergen was the son of George and Margaret Garret. He married Rachel Voorhies (or Voorhees) in 1867 in Big Grove, Iowa. According to the 1870 Census, Garret and Rachel were farming next door to his father in Big Grove with their one-year-old son Virgil. In 1872, George moved to Avoca and opened a hotel. Garret and his family moved there at the same time.

In late August 1874, Rachel gave birth to daughter Mertle. Rachel died on Sept. 22, 1874 for unknown reasons and Mertle died only a few days later on Oct. 1. Garret remarried the following year, and moved back to Big Grove with Virgil and his new wife.

Sometimes a little tidbit of news will catch my attention. When I looked up Michael Wetherby’s memorial on Find a Grave (spelled Weatherbee in some places), I learned he was born in 1838 in New York and married Favorette Bennett in Illinois in 1866. He served with the Seventh Michigan Cavalry, Company I, during the Civil War.

A native of New York, Michael Wetherby didn’t spend many years in Avoca.

He and Favorette moved to Avoca sometime after they married. They lived there during the 1870s before moving to Council Bluffs, Iowa where he worked as a successful liveryman. The Wetherbys had several children. When he died in July 1915, he was buried in Graceland Cemetery.

The Hake boys died eight days apart in 1879. Their grave marker says “Gone Too Soon”.

A native of Ohio, B.F. Hake was born in 1846 and served in the 11th Wisconsin infantry during the last two years of the Civil War. He married Aura Mae Smith in Lewis, Iowa in 1874 before they settled in Avoca. Aura gave birth first to Harry on Feb. 11, 1875. She then had Earl Hake on Nov. 4, 1877. Harry died at the age of four on April 19, 1879. Earl died just eight days later on April 27, 1979, only 15 months old.

The Hakes moved to Nebraska in the late 1880s and prospered in the cattle business. They would have three more sons that all lived well into adulthood. B.F. and Aura Mae moved to California in their later years to help improve his health. They had just moved to Wyoming where B.F. hoped to live out what years he had left with his sons when he died on May 27, 1913. Aura Mae died in 1934 and is buried beside him.

Finally, Graceland has a nice example of a tree monument for Abram Harris and his second wife, Mary.

Mary Harder was 18 years old when she married widower Abram Harris, who was 52.

A native of Saratoga County, New York, Abram Harris was born in 1824. He married Irish immigrant Johanna Ferris sometime before 1852. The 1860 Census indicates they were living in Ottawa, Ill. with their four children. His profession at that time was butcher.

The family moved to Colorado for a year before moving to Avoca in 1870, where Abram opened a meat market. He was later a successful farmer and cattle owner. At some point, he served two years as Avoca’s mayor and two years as justice of the peace. Abram and Johanna would have five children together, two who died in their teens.

Johanna Harris was 47 when she died in 1874.

Johanna died in February 1874. Abram remarried in December 1875 to Mary Harder, who was 18. Abram was 52. At the time, Abram’s oldest daughter was 20 so the two may have been classmates. Despite the age difference, Abram and Mary had seven children together, with only one dying in infancy.

Abram died in 1892 at the age of 68. Mary died in 1923 at the age of 64.

Next time, we’ll visit Malvern Cemetery.

Another view of Graceland Cemetery.

After leaving Riverside Cemetery, Christi and I picked up her friend Jacqueline and went to lunch in downtown Marshalltown. When I mentioned what I was doing, Jacqueline asked if she could go along if we planned on going to any other cemeteries. Even if it meant just sitting in the car, since her mobility is limited.

By looking on my Find a Grave app, I saw that Timber Creek Cemetery (TCC) was just south of town so we headed in that direction. You actually cross Timber Creek twice before you get there.

Timber Creek is south of Marshalltown amid farmland.

According to Find a Grave, TCC has around 1,100 burials. The Timber Creek Cemetery Association was organized on May 15, 1868, but from dates I saw, burials were taking place several years before that.

The exact start of Timber Creek Township is disputed. According to “History of Marshall County, Iowa” by N. Sanford (written in 1867), the settlement of Timber Creek was established when “Mr. J.M. Ferguson and Josiah (actually Joseph) Cooper settled on the south side of the grove in 1848.” According to another book written in 1878 “The History of Marshall County”, it was started in 1861. I’ll share more about Joseph Cooper later.

TCC is a well kept cemetery. The grass is mowed and the markers appear to be in good shape.

However, it didn’t take me long to discover one of the reasons the cemetery was so well mowed.

These old footstones were pulled up to make mowing the cemetery easier. At least it looked that way to me.

Surrounding a huge, old tree was a pile of old footstones that had been pulled up. I could see the initials on them. A few were smaller grave markers that were broken or had simply been tossed into the pile. One was for an infant, Perry Campbell, who died in 1867.

To be frank, it made me angry. I don’t know the people that take care of the cemetery so I don’t know the details behind this. But I do know that it’s not unusual for those who maintain older cemeteries to pull up the footstones to make mowing the grass easier.

Perry Campbell’s marker says “Gone But Not Forgotten.” But considering the condition of it, he has been.

Find a Grave showed a 2014 photograph of the same tree with the same footstones around it, so this was not recent. I find it very sad considering the people that buried their loved ones didn’t have any intention for the footstone to end up in a pile under a tree like unwanted rubbish.

Two graves I saw were for the VanHook family. Henry Thomas Van Hook died at the age of 28 in 1876. The stone says he was the husband of E.A. Vanhook, who I believe to be Eliza Ann Hook. A stone for Matilda Hook is beside it and I believe that to be Henry’s mother, who died in 1872.

I located Henry’s will on Ancestry, which contained many bills submitted to his estate. One was for his casket, which cost $25 and came from C.W. Pinkerton, a dealer in “furniture and coffins.” That may seem strange but at the time, the same man who sold you a dining room chair might also make your coffin. Based in nearby Gilman, C.W. Pinkerton was also an undertaker and likely handled Henry’s burial.

I could find little information about Henry Van Hook’s origins.

Henry’s epitaph reads:

? my wife and children all
From you a father Christ doth call
Mourn not for me it is in vain
To call me to your sight again.

Henry’s death left Eliza with three children under the age of 10. According to the 1895 Iowa Census, Eliza was born in Illinois and belonged to a “Friends” church and the 1915 Iowa Census confirmed she was a Quaker. The 1920 U.S. Census shows her living with married daughter Florence Brown (a dressmaker) and her family. Eliza died in 1935 and is buried at Riverside Cemetery, as is her son, John, and daughter, Florence. They both died in 1951.

As I noted earlier, one of Timber Creek’s earliest white settlers was Kentucky native Joseph Cooper. According to his son John’s obituary, Joseph and his wife Martha Ferguson Cooper left their Indiana home for Iowa in 1847, living briefly in Jasper. They settled on Timber Creek in 1848 (the same year Iowa was made a state) along with Martha’s brother Joseph Ferguson and his family. The two Josephs were among the first to purchase land in Marshall County from the U.S. government.

A Kentucky native, Joseph Cooper moved to Indiana in 1829 before taking his family to Iowa in 1847.

Martha gave birth to her and Joseph’s 11th child, Carl, in 1849. She would be the second adult death recorded in the area in 1852, so she was among the first to be buried at TCC. I suspect the shared marker for her and Joseph was not made until after his death in 1877.

Included in John Cooper’s obituary is an account of some Indians living nearby. A settlers’ stockade called Fort Robinson was built (about 90 square feet) on the land of Arthur Robinson. According to one account, it was built after the same settlers allegedly burned down a nearby Indian village and then feared retribution.

About 24 families took refuge there, with their cattle left outside the walls and their crops in the hands of the Indians until the U.S. Army arrived to take the Indians to Missouri. The presumed Fort Robinson site has a historical marker on it, but no archeological evidence has turned up to indicate just exactly where it was.

Joseph and Martha Cooper were among the first families to settle along Timber Creek.

Another early Timber Creek settler buried at TCC was John Fletcher Campbell. A native of Knox County, Tenn., Campbell was born in 1824 and moved near Springfield, Ill. as a child. Obituaries note he was a friend of Abraham Lincoln’s as he grew up. Later, his father moved the family to Jasper, Iowa. Joseph would meet up with Joseph Cooper and Joseph Ferguson around that time. The land he purchased at Timber Creek would eventually become known as Campbell’s Grove.

A bachelor at the time, Campbell and his brother, James, headed for California in 1852 in search of gold. After two years in the mining districts, John returned to Iowa by way of the Isthmus of Panama and around to New York City by boat, then home to Marshall County. During his journey, according to an obituary, he “carried about $2,400 in gold coin sewed up in the inside of his buckskin vest.”

John married Matilda Denney in 1856 and settled into farming life. The couple had several children, five that lived well into adulthood. Second son Alvin Campbell died in 1884 at the age of 21 and has the only white bronze marker that I saw at TCC.

Alvin Campbell was the second son of J.F. and Matilda Campbell.

John was a successful farmer, adding more acreage to his holdings over the years. He died of cystitis (inflammation of the bladder) in 1905 at the age of 81. Matilda died in 1934 at the age of 101. In the photo below to the left of their monument, you can see the marker for their infant son Robert, who was born and died in 1862.

John F. Campbell got the itch to try his luck in the California gold rush but returned to Iowa a few years later.

I also learned that the infant Perry Campbell (see photo further up) was the nephew of J.F Campbell. Perry was the son of John’s brother, George, and wife, Jane Bowen Campbell. Although George and Jane  lived in nearby Jasper, they buried Perry at TCC.

Finally, I’ll share this double marker for the children of the Rev. Isaac Johnson and Elivra Overheiser Johnson. The Johnsons came to Iowa in 1857 from Ohio and Rev. Johnson preached in several small churches in the area of Timber Creek, and the counties surrounding it.

The Johnsons lost two children in 1868.

The year 1868 was a tragic one for the Johnsons. On May 6, a 24-day-old infant died. Daughter Aradilla, not yet three years old, died in November of the same year. The Johnsons would have five children that lived to adulthood, but losing these two little ones must have been hard to take.

After taking Jacqueline home, we headed west out of Marshall County back toward Omaha. But we had a few more Iowa cemeteries to visit before we completed our journey.

Next time, I’ll take you to Graceland Cemetery in Avoca.