It's been over five decades since my maternal grandparents Roy and Olive Pearce moved from Hoisington, Kansas, but our families ties to that community remain strong. My grandfather Roy worked for many years as a pipefitter in the roundhouse there.
My mother Delana was the eldest of their five children, two of whom died in childhood at Hoisington. Daughter Leota (1923-1929) and lone son Dallas (1927, one month old) were interred in that city's Fairview Cemetery, their graves marked only with temporary markers.
Over the years it became one of those "things to do" that would make anyone's Bucket List: to go back sometime and place more permanent markers on the graves. My mother talked about it, my sister Sue and I talked about it, and always something or another happened to put it off.
So on this Saturday Sue and I resolved to finally take on this project. We decided that instead of obtaining two normal headstones we would create two concrete ones of our own design. My niece Katie helped us gather the needed concrete mix, sand, water, wood, buckets, rags, and two new temporary markers.
Katie and Sue put together the wood forms we would be using when pouring the new concrete stones.
From Sue's home in Salina we drove west at 10:30 AM from Salina past Ellsworth toward Hoisington. With temperatures for the day forecast to be in the high 90s and the humidity to be upwards of 200%, we decided that we had best get fortified first for the upcoming labor. So at the small community of Redwing we turned off of Kansas Highway 4 and headed eight miles north to the nearly-as-small community of Beaver, Kansas. We entered Mo's Tavern, a microbrewery and hidden Kansas treasure where the food is always good and homemade beer better. After the usual excellent meal Sue downed the Half Moon Wheat Beer and I an Elm Street Porter, and we were then good to go.
Or so we thought.
We headed on to Hoisington and on the east edge of town turned into the Fairview Cemetery. Around 20 years ago I had been shown where the graves were, and went to the same area. We looked and searched and prodded the ground, but could find no trace of the markers. This presented a real problem, as we wanted to be sure that we were placing the headstones in the right place. Not being able to find the old temporary markers meant that we needed to track down someone who could help us locate the two plots. Even in a city the size of Hoisington finding such a person on a weekend could be difficult.
So we first went to the Nicholson-Ricke Funeral Home on North Main Street, our logic being if anyone knows who could help us find burial plots in the local cemeteries it would be the local funeral director. However, they were at that moment in the middle of a funeral service, and so we had to come up with a Plan B.
On any given weekend in small town Kansas there are two other possible entities that you can approach with this kind of problem - the local police and the local library. We found the library first, and in the cool of the inside the weekend librarian was kind enough to put through for us a series of local phone calls trying to track some one down who could help. The city manager was not home and so did not answer; neither did the city clerk. The city police line was busy.
At last I asked her to go ahead and call the funeral home, hoping that we would not be disturbing the services there. The director answered and was very kind, offering to look up the two plots and meet us back at the cemetery in about twenty minutes, which happened to be where the funeral service was coming out to as well.
We thanked the librarian for her help, did a quick tour of town and met the director at the cemetery a little after 2PM. Using a 1940 map he quickly ascertained that we had been looking in the wrong place (so much for my memory) and quickly located the two temporary markers, which had been pushed down into the ground and grown over by the Bermuda grass. We thanked him and he returned to the ongoing funeral service.
With relief we unloaded our gear and began the ardous task of preparing the ground for the concrete base. The grass was thick and stubborn, the ground was rock hard and unforgiving, and the hot July sun would slip in and out between clouds to sear down upon us. It did not take long for both of us to be drenched with sweat.
After what seemed hours we had the ground dug and leveled and our two wood forms in place. We then handmixed the concrete with sand and water, poured the concrete in the forms, and smoothed them down. Then we took two new temporary markers and pushed them down into the concrete.
Here Sue can be seen decorating the poured headstones with minature marbles pressed into the cement.
This 1925 photograph shows my mother Delana Pearce, top, with her sister Leota, bottom, then not quite two years old. Leota was the age of five when she passed away in 1929.
The finished folk art-style headstones now stand above the ground several inches and so should keep the lettering safe from renegade riding lawn mowers for many years to come.
After 80 and 82 years respectively our aunt and uncle are once again being treated with the respect and dignity that all former loved ones deserve. In a few weeks we will return to remove the wood forms and leave these children to continue to rest in peace.
It now being mid-afternoon we dragged our sweat-soaked bodies into the nearby Dairy Queen and spent the next two hours drying out in the blessed air conditioning and replenishing our liquid-parched bodies before heading back to Salina satisfied with a job accomplished at last.
This 1953 marker is to the memory of all the early settlers in the "Oak Dale District," which consisted mainly of those settlers from along both Elm and Oak Creeks.
At its beginning Osborne County, Kansas could count those of the Democratic Party persuasion on one hand. A. B. Collins was one of the of these before his death on December 6, 1872. A tree he was cutting fell on him at the age of 42 years, 9 months.
Forgive the poor quality of the photo, but Joseph Delbert “Del” Cox deserves a small moment of reflection. An early settler and historian, for 40 years he wrote the column "Across the Raging Solomon" for the local newspaper. Now THAT would be a blog!
In our rural cemeteries even the most important memories are slowly fading away. Here the best that can be done is a homemade stone saying Civil War Veteran Unknown.
When the local GAR ("Grand Army of the Republic" - the Union soldier post-Civil War fraternal organization) post was formed in the nearby town of Downs, the name of the war veteran they chose to honor was that of Benjamin Greenman. This being an honor usually preserved for the most distinguished and well known of the veterans, it is odd that very little is known of Benjamin Greenman, as this simple homemade stone shows. One of the many unfinished stories that abound in Osborne County, Kansas. 
The old adage To know where you're going, You've got to know where you've been is often more true than most people realize. It's nice to see by this plant stand that the citizens of Cawker City respect their past and their town namesale, Colonel E. Harrison Cawker. Though more respectable plants in the stand might go further to emphasize that point.
Above and Below: Zimmerman Cemetery, Osborne County
Above: Zimmerman Cemetery, Osborne County
At noon Saturday all gathered four blocks away in the former Whiting School, now the Whiting Community Center, for a great meal. Live music performed as all stuffed themselves. This set us to wondering: "How on earth did those who stayed and worked all three days stay so slim?"
Caught by WenDee LaPlant with our mouths full and our stomachs satisfied in the above photo, we did manage to return and work the rest of the day. After eleven hours and the loss of some heavily-soiled clothing that had to be thrown away it was time for us to return to Salina. We did so by taking state highways west and south of Whiting through some gorgeous countryside, especially in Pottawatomie County. As we drove through we passed 4th of July celebrations going on in the Kansas towns of Goff and Havensville. 
