The Graveyard

All Saints Cemetery, Angloa by the Bay, Delaware

Hey folks!  If you're wondering where I'll be the next few days, here's a clue.

Oh, do not worry.  I'm still alive and making waves wherever I happen to plant my feet. But where I will be the next few days is updating my Find a Grave account.  I still have several hundred pictures I've taken of graves here in Sussex County that I haven't posted to my Find a Grave account.  Most of my pictures were taken in 2008,  three years ago!

At that time, except for one guy (Russ Picket), I was the only person trolling through the graveyards here in southern Delaware, recording the names and dates of those folks who never made it out of here.  That's what Bill calls those in the cemeteries down here, "They never made it out."  Well, we'll make it out.  I've already purchased two side by side lots at the Northwood Cemetery in Downingtown, Pennsylvania for both me and Bill.  I haven't purchased the headstones yet.  I haven't decided what kind I want yet.  So many choices and time is growing short.  I think this is the year I take the plunge (no pun intended).


However, since those virgin a days of 2008 when I had the cemeteries mostly to myself, competition has arrived!  A few weeks ago when I started to post my records and photos of graves, I noticed that many of them were already posted!  What the hell?  Turns out that some other fine folk who live in this wonderful part of Delaware have joined Find a Grave and taken up the Cause with a vengeance.  And one of the cemetery trollers is another gay guy who I thought was busy enough with his job as Governor Markell's liaison with the gay community!  Apparently he has enough time to usurp my self-designated function of recording all the grave sites here in good old, isolated Sussex County.  Like I said "What the hell?"

 So, for the next few days I'll be posting names and dates and photos of those Sussex County, Delaware residents who "never made it out."  So as Linda Richman said "Talk among yourselves" until I return.

Psst...if you know who Linda Richman is then you passed "I Am Gay 101".  For those of you who have NO IDEA, Google her..him...it.

"Linda Richman"

Find a Grave

Recently, while enmeshed in my Tipton genealogy research, my cousin Tim Tipton from Tennessee told me about the web site Find A Grave.com. I checked it out and now I have a new passion. I've always loved roaming through graveyards, searching for family member headstones. I envy Tim, because he lives in Tennessee where there are literally thousands of Tiptons buried in that area of the country. Here in Pennsylvania, I have a much more limited number of Tiptons. However, I also have many members of my Mother's side of my family, the Hadfields, Hickmans, and Weavers. Now that I'm living in Delaware, my search for family members is severely limited. I doubt if I can find any of my family in the area where I live, Sussex County, Delaware. I've checked the phone book and I see where there are some Tiptons. I'll have to give them a call and find out if any of them know of their ancestors. That is another field of genealogy research that I have to plow. I get not a small amount of pleasure knowing that I have that task that I can look forward to doing in the future. After my father's death in 2000, I purchased my grave plot at the Northwood Cemetery in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. At one time in my life I had decided to be cremated. However, since discovering the richness of history in researching my family history through grave yard searches, I decided that I didn't want to disappear from history when I died. I selected a plot on the side of a hill overlooking the valley that the town of Downingtown, Pennsylvania is located. As my Mother has said, you always want a grave site with a good view.