History...

A few days ago Dude and I went on a little adventure where we took some shots of old houses and went to local public cemeteries that required no fence climbing to get to. And quite frankly the sign did not say Keep Out or Posted or No Trespassing.. it SAID No Tres. Now I don't now much Spanish but I know a wee bit, enough to know that we were Tres but we were Dos so we were good to go.

The other day I posted some of the weird names that I found while on that excursion and This Lovely Lady thought it might be a good idea to tell me to dig for an obituary of one in particular. Little did the lovely lady know I would actually take the time yesterday to go to the local library and do just that.

Pocohontas Hudgins

A funeral Service was held at 2 pm Saturday in Bethel United Methodist Church for Miss Pocohontas Hudgins 80, of Onemo, who died on Thursday, March 10, 1977 in a Richmond hospital after a long illness.

Miss Hudgins was a member of Bethel Church.

Survivors include a sister Mrs. James T Davis of Onemo.

The Service was conducted by Rev. Ralph Rice and the Rev. William Hindman. Burial was at Pear Tree Cemetery.

So there you have it.. no nickname mentioned... she probably went by Po or something cute like that..

WARNING TISSUE ALERT!

Now that that mystery is solved I moved on to another one.

Do you notice anything unusual in this shot? It took me a minute to grasp the magnitude of what I was actually seeing and even then I looked AGAIN. My first thought was .. this is a carvers mistake (it happened a lot back then) and then I saw this

which confirmed that either

a) the carver was a COMPLETE idiot.

b) someone filled in the order form for this stone wrong

or

c) There were twin babies buried in that teeny tiny little plot.

So the research began... First to the Clerk of Court who had a very LARGE very OLD very STINKY book of death. It was all of the recorded deaths in the county from the late 1700s to roughly 1874. Which as you can see.. 1874 did not cover me. So then it was on to the Health Dept. to ask what they could do to help because apparently THEY are the peeps who are the holders of death now. Not sure how they got that lovely job but they do. HOWEVER, they only hold records as far back as 2007 THAT certainly was not going to help me. But the nice lady there directed me to Richmond .. 800 Broad St to be exact where I would have to GO to get what I was looking for.. OH PFFFFFT. I seriously did not have time to go running off to Richmond all willy nilly yesterday afternoon. So I packed that mystery back in it's pretty little box and tied it with a little light blue bow for the boys, realizing I may never know which option from above had occurred.

Then it was off to research an obit on Pocohantas which I knew I would find even if she did not make it easy on me. You see she died in March 1977 so if you are using Microfish you would start at the January paper and only have 12 papers to thumb through before getting to hers and waalaa all done. That would be if anyone other than ME were doing this... I put the film in the machine and what do I see.. END the mirror image of END. Ummm this isn't right... "Hey nice library dude... this isn't right is it?" Nope it isn't. "Well what do I do?" Nothing you can do it was put on backwards and upside down "WHAT??" You will have to research it that way "WHAT??? I am good but I do not want to attempt to read 52 papers upside down!" Oh I can fix that but you will have to start at Dec 31 issue. So you see.. to find her I had to read 40 papers! UGH.

During that time I got up and walked around the room a bit cause well.. my eyes were crossing and I found a Mathews County Record of Deaths book that ended in 1874. Nice I thought I could have come in here and not had to deal with the stinky book at the other office. I still couldn't figure out why death records stopped at that year but there was a fire of some sort and some records were destroyed I think. Then... peaking out from behind a book where it did not belong I found.. Mathews County Death Records though 1896!!!!!! WOOHOOO... I was going to be able to prove it was just some idiots mistake!!!

I didn't.

John Williams (wh) age: 10 mos Cause: Complication of Disease Place: Haven Recorded by: Thomas Williams Head of Family Parents Thomas and Betty Williams

Richard Williams (wh) age: 10 mos Cause: Complication of Disease Place: Haven Recorded by: Thomas Williams Head of Family Parents Thomas and Betty Williams

My heart broke in a million pieces at that moment. So all you moms out there.. go hug your kid or give them a call and tell them how much you love them, and be grateful that we do not live in a time or place where death is so rampant that it could take both of your boys in one fail swoop.