Showing posts with label genealogy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label genealogy. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Myra Chambers, 1906-2007


This is curious. We have a temporary marker and the permanent marker sitting off to the side of the cemetery along the fence with the other misplaced stones. Why is this? 2007 is not long enough ago for the cemetery to have misplaced Myra's remains.

Myra was loved. She was probably a mother, a grandmother, maybe a great grandmother? She lived 98 years. Apparently she was a Registered Nurse, so she cared for others. Why, barely three years after her death, is her grave marker set aside with the other misplaced stones?

Her obituary ran in the Sacramento Bee on December 9, 2007. Without paying the obituary archive service, I can read the first line: "CHAMBERS, Myra Catherine Died on December 6, 2007. Myra is survived by her grandson Michael Brian Chambers, devoted friend Dennis John Huber, and son John."

Heringer Family

As I think it is important to remember that each burial represents a person that had a life story and had a family that cared for them, I'm including a partial genealogy of a family that used this cemetery that I found by accident during a Google search.

http://the-heringer-family.com/five-families.aspx


According to Find a Grave, there are three Heringers listed in Bellview Cemetery: John , Geertje, and Jennie. They were born in Holland and immigrated to America to eventually settle in the farmland surrounding Bellview Cemetery. Geertje died in 1898, John in 1902 , and at least one of their children, Jennie, was also buried here in 1898. There are no pictures of their headstones, so I wonder if they just have not been uploaded or if they are among the hundreds of missing markers in this cemetery.

Their story from the "Five Families" site:

John Heringa, later changed to Heringer, was born 16 March 1819, in the province of Groningén, Holland, his parents being Peter and Geertje Heringa. The later died when John was seven years old and the former died two years later, in 1829. In the family which survived they were two children, one son and a daughter. They both lived with their grandmother, but when John was twelve years of age he was bound out to farm work for six months in the adjoining county of Birum, at the expiration of which time he went to live with an uncle in Appingedam, who kept a dry-goods store and manufactured woolen goods. John remained with him nine years and learned the weaving trade, at which he Worked part of the time and the rest of the time at farming following nine years he served in the army, then in 185 he was engaged on the police.-force in the own of Oppenhuezen. While there he met Geertje Joustra, a native of Oppénhuezen, in Friesland, born 29 Jan 1835, whom he Married in 1857. On 19 July 1868, having saved $1,100, they started for America, sailing from Liverpool and landing in Boston., thence to New York, where they arrived after a voyage of fourteen days.

After stopping New York three days they took a steamer for Panama, thence to San Francisco, landing 14 Sept 1868. The next day they came to Sacramento, where a friend and a countryman, sold them a small ranch of thirty acres, located in the Merritt District, Yolo County, for $600. They next invested $300 in cows and started in the dairy business. They lived there three years then sold the place for $1000 and bought 160 acres, devoted to general farming, in Sacramento County, located near what is now Mather Field Air Base. Mr. Heringa died 31 Jan 1902; Mrs. Heringa died 3 Mar 1898, both are buried in Bell View Cemetery, Sacramento County. All children, except Charles, born in Oppenhuezen, Friesland, Holland.

2+ Peter, b 27 Sept 1859; d 19 June 1946; in 25 Dec 1890, Ella Brinupkey
3+Josepha, b 6 Oct 1861; d 13 Mar 1912; in 29 Aug 1885; Martha Tromp (6)
4+Jöhn, b 12 June 1863; d 30 Aug 1906; in 7 Oct 1887, Charlotte Pylman.
5+Jennie, b 9 Mar 1866; d 11 Oct 1898; in 29 Jan 1886, Hiram Bish.
6+ Charles, b 4 Dec 1877; d 25 Apr 1946; in Tillie Annie Moore.

Find a Grave

The site "Find a Grave" has 708 burials at Bellview Cemetery online so far, including several of the neglected plots. Even Natividad Gomez is included with photo. However, George Wilson (one that that I partially uncovered in order to read the name in the post below), is not listed. I will update his listing at Find a Grave as soon as I have a chance to go back out to Bellview and clean a few of these markers up to photograph as I'm sure they were overlooked previously.

Most of these listings include photos, so perhaps my intended task of photographing all and posting them here will be a much smaller endeavor than I imagined.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gsr&GScid=1963316

Monday, March 14, 2011

Natividad Gomez, 1914-1971


She was not included in any of the published lists of this cemetery. As her epitaph indicates she had children (who remember her), it is important that she be included as a "resident" of this cemetery.

Apparently she was once left flowers which have been strewn about by wind, animals, or perhaps the cemetery management's infamous tractors.

Cemetery Listings

"Old Bellview Cemetery" listing:
http://files.usgwarchives.org/ca/sacramento/cemeteries/bellview.txt

Slightly more complete Bellview Cemetery listing compiled in 2009 as an Eagle Scout project:
http://files.usgwarchives.org/ca/sacramento/cemeteries/belleviewII.txt

It is my intention to photo-catalog the markers here eventually. There are a number already online thanks to Shelley Lewis of the Sloughouse Area Genealogical Society/Tombstone Transcription Project. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/sacramento/photos/tombstones/bellview/

I have not yet started methodically plotting the visible markers at this cemetery, but I do know that I have at least one name/grave that was not captured by any of the above lists, which is why I want very much to photograph every marker in this cemetery. The dead deserve our reverence and respect. It is a shame that this cemetery has been the victim of such utter disregard and mismanagement over the years, but the people who were interred here deserve at least to have their names known and their markers available online for their descendants and relatives to be able to see. I hope that living relatives of the deceased will make a visit and try to care for their loved one's graves as it is apparent the current management is not doing its due duty for the deceased.