~it all started with a Revolution~

     As a kid growing up back home in south central Kansas, it used to be the creepiest of places to go and visit on Memorial Day each year.  The Fairview Quaker Cemetery,  just a couple of miles north of Halstead, Kansas was the final resting spot for several of my mother's family members on the "Brown" side of our genealogical tree.  Every Decoration Day without fail my mom, the aunts, and my grandmother would load up the car with flowers of all kinds to adorn the grave sites of those who had gone on before us.  We children went along and learned very early on to not fear going to the graveyards and in essence not to fear death itself.  As I've grown older, ok much older, I have grown to appreciate that life lesson that those women taught me.  I actually find much peace in cemeteries and have realized that walking through them and reading the gravestones is like a lesson in history.  The dead still have a story to tell, if we are only willing to listen to it.

Now back to that creepy place I was talking about.

Many of my ancestors are buried in that little tiny cemetery, including my great-great grandmother, Rebecca Keys Burch.  Rebecca's "fifteen seconds of fame" is that she was the last living pensioner of a Revolutionary War soldier in America.  A stone monument that tells that story is just to the north east corner of the cemetery.  I heard a lot about her as a kid growing up but the very idea of going to her grave on Memorial Day was always a little unnerving.

Back in those days early days of my life, Fairview Cemetery was not kept up by anyone in Harvey County.  My memories of it include adjectives like rundown, unkempt, forlorn, and down right depressing.  Great-Great Grandmother's grave was completely covered over by lilac bushes and her grave marker  from the late 1880's was starting to push out of the ground.  The rest of the graves looked much the same and many Memorial Days she was one of the few over 1,000 residents that received any flowers at all.  But we went to visit great-great grandmother's grave any way and honored her for her special place in the history of our country.  Every year without fail, Rebecca Burch's grave was adorned with floral offerings as best we could.

The cemetery is 100% the "polar opposite" these days.  About 20 years ago or so, a wonderful group of local folks decided that the cemetery should be cared for and now it is under the auspices of the Harvey County township board.  The old rickety wire fence was replaced with a new white vinyl one.  All of the graves have been located underneath the old lilac bushes that were taken out.  I remember how weird it felt to finally be able, after all these long years, to see my grandmother's grave sans all the forest of lilac bushes.  The grass is mowed and kept in fairly pristine condition and grave markers that were once toppled by the passing of time have been "righted" and repaired.  A beautiful sign has been placed along the road way and it's obvious that now someone does care about the folks that lie there as they "rest in peace".  I have gone there often and even now that I live over 600 miles away, I still find myself stopping by there when I am home.  When I leave flowers for her now, I am actually standing next to the spot that will be my own resting place when my time here in this life is done.  I was able to secure a spot that remained right next to her and there my cremains shall be placed.  It's nice to know where I will be.

On this Veteran's Day, I am thinking of my Great-Great Grandfather, William Burch, a 19-year old enlistee who left his home in Albemarle County, Virginia to join up with the forces  fighting in the American Revolution in early 1776.  Revolutionary War pension records that I found indicate that he fought under General Daniel Morgan at the battle of Saratoga in October of 1777.  Many years later (at the age of 73) he married a young 29-year old woman named Rebecca Keys.   They had two children together, one of which was my Great-Grandmother Elizabeth Burch Brown.  He died when the children were very young and neither of them would have any remembrance of the man who was their father.  The generations on that side of my family were extremely spread out beginning with the generation of my great-great grandparents all the way down to my own generation.  It has always seemed odd to be able to say that I have a Revolutionary War veteran in my immediate family tree but it is what it is.  When William Burch's wife would die in the years that followed, she would be last recipient of a pension check for veterans from that war.  The DAR honored her memory in the 1920's with the stone monument at the Fairview Cemetery and in 2006 rededicated her grave with a special ceremony honoring her memory. 

I am honored  to be a "daughter" of the American Revolution and proud of the young man who stood up for a brand new fledgling country they were calling "The United States of America".  I have some regrets that it took me so many years to appreciate my own family history.   I have tried to tell my own children about it and in the years to come will tell my little grandchildren about it as well.  We need to remember, all of us, from where we have come.  For the blood of soldiers spilled from the Revolutionary War and all the wars that have followed since, we owe a huge debt of gratitude.  To veterans everywhere, this Kansas farm girl gives her "thanks".

Flag Day~2006
My mom and her sister with the descendants of William and Rebecca Keys Burch at the Fairview Cemetery.  It was a hot and windy Kansas day but going to this DAR rededication ceremony for our grandmother was kind of like going to meet a family member that you had always heard of but never got the chance to know.

When I said it was windy, I wasn't kidding.  It was nice to see the people that were participating in the ceremony as they honored the widow of a soldier, now long gone from the earth.

Hard to believe that this photo was taken in 2008 on a chilly but very sunny spring day. This monument to my grandmother is on the north east corner of the Fairview Cemetery.  When I get to where I am finally going, please come there to visit me, ok?   Bring a good book and read it to me :)  It will make this teacher's heart very happy.