Cemetery Hunting in Southern Delaware

Headstone for Mary Caroline Lynch Rickards - the Find a Grave.com photo request that I fulfilled yesterday at the Lynch Family Cemetery in Williamsville, Delaware

Finally, some rain.  Late yesterday afternoon the clouds rolled in.  Last night from our backyard here at Casa Tipton-Kelly I could see lightening flashes in the West towards Maryland.  Fortunately, those thunderstorms didn't roll in over us but we did get some hard rain last night for our parched earth here on the eastern shore of Delaware.

The Lynch Family Cemetery near Williamsville, Delaware

The pollen count this spring has been atrocious, making breathing difficult and coating our vehicles with a fine, yellow dusting of pollen.  That "stuff" was also going into our lungs.  No wonder we were all choking around here the past few weeks.  Sneezing, watery eyes, gagging.

Bill waiting for me in our car while I take pictures of headstones in the cemetery

Yesterday Bill and I made our second run in as many days down to Selbyville, Delaware near the Maryland border.  I had a Find a Grave.com request to take a picture of a headstone for an old family grave.  The Selbyville area is new to us and I wasn't familiar with the area.  Friday we went looking for the Lynch Family Cemetery but all we could find was the Red Men Cemetery and the Roxanna Cemetery.  Lots of Lynches in those cemeteries but not Mary Rickards, who we were looking for.

Hudson Family Cemetery in the middle of a soybean field

I was determined to find her grave and that cemetery so we went again yesterday.  After finding a few two more cemeteries, one in the middle of a soybean field (The Hudson Family Cemetery) and a sad little neglected cemetery next to a gas station (The Bunting Family Cemetery) we finally found it.  Viola!

Bill looking at the sad little neglected Bunting Family Cemetery 

I cannot tell you how thoroughly enjoyable it is for me to go on these cemetery expeditions.  This is the one activity where I don't have some expert telling me what to do with my life and spare time.  I'm on my own.  I have no one criticizing me or telling me I'm wasting my time.  I am so tired of all these know-it-alls telling me how I should lead my life.  I visit a cemetery where all is peaceful and no one is looking for fault with me and I am doing something meaningful. I am helping the relative or a genealogical researcher by fulfilling their request. It makes me feel good by helping people like this.  Living my life this way is so much better than so called "friends" constantly carping and criticizing me and telling me how "disappointed" they are in me because I'm not dancing to their tune.

Me relaxing after taking pictures of all the headstones in the Lynch Family Cemetery

Next month Bill and I are headed south for our annual trip.  I plan to visit as many of these small family cemeteries as I can in those "hollers" of western North Carolina that border on Tennessee.  My father was born in those hills (The Bailey settlement, North Carolina near Tipton Hill) in 1920.  He and his family left those hillbilly populated hollers in the late 1920's for southeastern Pennsylvania for a better way of life.  There are many, many Tipton graves that need to have photos taken of them and recorded on Find a Grave.com.  I am so looking forward to this trip.

Me taking pictures of headstones in the Lynch Family Cemetery

All this twisting and turning is great exercise!

Bob and Ron's Excellent Adventure at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.

Yesterday my friend Bob C. and I took a senior citizen sponsored trip to Washington D.C. to visit the Smithsonian Institute.  This is a slide show of the pictures and the videos I took of that trip.

To quote a blogger buddy of mine "We had a jolly good time."