Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Tombstone Tuesday Evergreen Cemetery

Click here to go to Evergreen Cemetery

I have found a new distant cousin, Howard.  He has shared about his family and I have learned about a Gray and Blue Civil War Retirement community.
This is from his letter.


These are my 2nd great-grandparents, Leon Selwyn Shaver and Ella Cecilia Brigham.  They left Michigan to go to the Swan Colony in Fitzgerald, Georgia in 1895.  It was a retirement community planned for the veterans of the Civil War.  If you look up the history of Fitzgerald, Georgia, it's really a very inspirational story.  There were veterans from the North as well as the South who all came together and treated each other with mutual respect, blue and gray marched together, shoulder to shoulder, in the first parade they had in late 1895, if I remember right.  Ella, however, died there in 1896 from Malaria which she had contracted either before or sometime during their trip.  Her husband and children moved back to Michigan after her death and he married her sister Alice. 
Howard

1 comment:

  1. Hi Hummer Sweetie...
    How exciting to find a distant relative. I always love walking through cemetaries and reading all the old history. I also love the way they worded things back then. It always reads different.

    I hope you are well. As always I love to pop over and say hi. Many hugs and much love, Sherry

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