I'd like to share a story about "my cemetery" and 1850's homestead. Several years ago, I was lucky enough to finally lease a large ranch for deer hunting. The owner was a man in the mid-70's, and meaner than a junk yard dog. He talked very little, never smiled, and always gruff. From the start, he made it clear that if I, or any of my fellow hunters violated any of his ranch rules, we would never set foot on his property again. One of his rules was to leave everything as you found them. (he had a lot more). During the first year I was exploring various hunting sites, and came across a long-abandoned family cemetery. The weeds were waist high and the area was covered in huge cactus piles. The oldest headstone was from 1870, and the latest one was 1940. Most of the others were from 1920- 1935. There was also a row of 5 small, unidentified above-ground graves that were obviously children's graves, and several markers that were just field stones. Right then, I made a promise to those buried there that it would never be allowed to get in that condition again. For the next month I cleared brush, cut cactus, repaired broken headstones, and finally, it looked like a park. Clean and beautiful again. During this time, I recorded all the information from the headstones so I could do some research on the family buried there. Anyway, about three weeks later, I had just driven in the ranch gate and ol' Grumpy drove in behind me. From his expression, he was gruffer than usual. He walked up to me and said " what the hell is the story about my cemetery". I was really caught off guard. He was not being friendly at all. I told him that I happened upon it, didn't like its condition, and decided to clean it up. His expression didn't change. He said "whyd you doit". I knew then, I was toast. I explained that in my opinion, no cemetery deserves to be neglected, and I intended to keep it that way. Tears formed in his eyes. He reached out and shook my hand, something he had never offered before, and proceeded to tell me that he had not been in that cemetery since his father was buried there in 1940. He discovered the work only because he was following the car tracks that I made during the clean up. That hateful, gruff old man became my dearest friend, and I hope his. He even smiles(when nobody else is looking). Eventually, he told me of the original homestead location - about 100 yds North of the cemetery, and another one on the other side of the ranch that was burned by Indians in 1870. One of the folks buried in the cemetery was killed by them during that raid. I will be detecting both locations in the near future - nobody else knows of their location.
