My Friday morning spent fulfilling all my Nancy Drew fantasies.
Before Chris left for work yesterday morning, he noted that he hadn't seen Mogwai (our cat) at all since he left home Thursday morning for work. I didn't really think anything of the fact that I hadn't heard constant, desperate meowing in the morning like usual. I hadn't really seen or heard him since Thursday afternoon when he desperately wanted to come out and see what I was up to in the garage (preparing a frame to hang some pegboard in the office closet and repairing the drawer from the desk in there so I can put all my stuff back in it, in case anyone besides the cat was curious).
After taking Jonah to school, I made it my quest to search out the cat, where ever he may be hiding. I looked literally every where in our house. Even places that there's no logical way he'd get into like the closed up attics. Because if there's anything cats aren't, it's logical. I know he went into the garage and I was pretty sure that was the last time I saw him and I noticed there's a tiny crack under the garage door where, although unlikely, it's possible he could have gotten out. So, with the assumption that he escaped the premises, I fortified myself with a cup of coffee, laced up my hiking boots, wrapped up in my warmest hoody and ventured out into the thawing morning on what would become a wild goose chase, if it hadn't been a domestic cat chase instead.
I wandered the tree line and the field behind our house, checking out the awesome treehouse our neighbors are building by the creek. Then I made my way to the front of the house and started up towards the pool and the playground area and the woods behind them where we found him the last time he got lost. But as I was traipsing around through the woods, clicking my tongue and calling to my stupid cat (who, by the way, turned up in the garage about three hours later), I literally almost ran into this:
That is the only stone of many that is standing in its entirety and even a bottom corner of it is chipped off. I thought it was completely blank at first, but I noticed the initials B. (see ETA below) R. E. H. as I looked closer.
Actually, the contrast on my phone screen was very helpful in making out some of the details better than I could with my naked eye. I looked around to see several more smaller stones and started poking around, snapping pics and uncovering larger stones which had fallen or been knocked down at some point. The full set is here.
Some of the ones of interest:
Only one other stone had an inscription beyond something strictly decorative and it was in three pieces on the ground. From what I could make out, it says, "In memory of [can't make out the full first name, but I can see what I think is chel as the last four letters] (see ETA below) Rachel E. Howington who was born Feb. 15th, 1813 and departed this life Oct. 2nd, 1889". I did a cursory Google search on my phone while I was standing there, excited about my discovery and hoping to find some record of this person and perhaps a clue as to who they were and maybe who the others might be that are buried there. I haven't found anything as of yet. The age on it is bound to make that difficult and I'll probably have to read a bunch of really lengthy books dealing with the history of the area to find even a possible mention of this person. But I just think it's so neat to have this little slice of hidden history up there!
Jonah wanted to see it today, so I took him up there. He took Giraffie because he was a bit spooked out by the prospect, but too curious not to want to go up there. Once we got there, he realized there was really nothing spooky about it. It's just a few broken headstones in the woods.
ETA: RACHEL E. HOWINGTON! That's a footstone with the initials, I'm sure and it's R. E. H. not B. E. H. I looked at the pics one more time and I noticed the partial letter before the CHEL of the first name looked a bit like the leg of an A and then it clicked and I looked at the B. again on the footstone and sure enough, I'm pretty sure it's an R. Sadly, again, given the era this is from, it still doesn't give me much to go on and I still can't find a Rachel E. Howington in this area with those dates, but it's something. I've found Howingtons in the immediate area (as close as an area called Scottsboro on Ashland City Highway just north of I-40 where there's another Howington family cemetery), but not Rachel E., yet. Considering this area was settled in the late 1770s/early 1780s, she could have been a second generation settler. Fun stuff!
After taking Jonah to school, I made it my quest to search out the cat, where ever he may be hiding. I looked literally every where in our house. Even places that there's no logical way he'd get into like the closed up attics. Because if there's anything cats aren't, it's logical. I know he went into the garage and I was pretty sure that was the last time I saw him and I noticed there's a tiny crack under the garage door where, although unlikely, it's possible he could have gotten out. So, with the assumption that he escaped the premises, I fortified myself with a cup of coffee, laced up my hiking boots, wrapped up in my warmest hoody and ventured out into the thawing morning on what would become a wild goose chase, if it hadn't been a domestic cat chase instead.
I wandered the tree line and the field behind our house, checking out the awesome treehouse our neighbors are building by the creek. Then I made my way to the front of the house and started up towards the pool and the playground area and the woods behind them where we found him the last time he got lost. But as I was traipsing around through the woods, clicking my tongue and calling to my stupid cat (who, by the way, turned up in the garage about three hours later), I literally almost ran into this:
That is the only stone of many that is standing in its entirety and even a bottom corner of it is chipped off. I thought it was completely blank at first, but I noticed the initials B. (see ETA below) R. E. H. as I looked closer.
Actually, the contrast on my phone screen was very helpful in making out some of the details better than I could with my naked eye. I looked around to see several more smaller stones and started poking around, snapping pics and uncovering larger stones which had fallen or been knocked down at some point. The full set is here.
Some of the ones of interest:
Only one other stone had an inscription beyond something strictly decorative and it was in three pieces on the ground. From what I could make out, it says, "In memory of [can't make out the full first name, but I can see what I think is chel as the last four letters] (see ETA below) Rachel E. Howington who was born Feb. 15th, 1813 and departed this life Oct. 2nd, 1889". I did a cursory Google search on my phone while I was standing there, excited about my discovery and hoping to find some record of this person and perhaps a clue as to who they were and maybe who the others might be that are buried there. I haven't found anything as of yet. The age on it is bound to make that difficult and I'll probably have to read a bunch of really lengthy books dealing with the history of the area to find even a possible mention of this person. But I just think it's so neat to have this little slice of hidden history up there!
Jonah wanted to see it today, so I took him up there. He took Giraffie because he was a bit spooked out by the prospect, but too curious not to want to go up there. Once we got there, he realized there was really nothing spooky about it. It's just a few broken headstones in the woods.
ETA: RACHEL E. HOWINGTON! That's a footstone with the initials, I'm sure and it's R. E. H. not B. E. H. I looked at the pics one more time and I noticed the partial letter before the CHEL of the first name looked a bit like the leg of an A and then it clicked and I looked at the B. again on the footstone and sure enough, I'm pretty sure it's an R. Sadly, again, given the era this is from, it still doesn't give me much to go on and I still can't find a Rachel E. Howington in this area with those dates, but it's something. I've found Howingtons in the immediate area (as close as an area called Scottsboro on Ashland City Highway just north of I-40 where there's another Howington family cemetery), but not Rachel E., yet. Considering this area was settled in the late 1770s/early 1780s, she could have been a second generation settler. Fun stuff!