Family Funeral

 Fair warning. This post is for my extended family. You are welcome to read it and may enjoy some of the photos. Aunt Nancy succumbed to cancer a few weeks ago. Her children decided to inter her cremation ashes in the family cemetery over the Labor Day weekend.

 A little history. Around 1912 Leonard and Frank White filed homestead claims about 20 miles West of Maybell, CO. The land has remained in the hands of some of the descendents. Jayne Hoth, nee White, ended up owning the property and her two surviving children still own it. Aunt Jane established a portion to become a private family cemetery.

40° 24’ 19.08”N  108° 28’ 20.02” W

 As an extended family we gather at the Maybell, CO Community Center. A very rough head count Sunday morning was fifty souls.

Organizing anything with our tribe is like herding cats but eventually thirty or so vehicles convoyed West on US 40.

The only plan for the cemetery is for the graves to be between a dirt track and the West property line. Graves are scattered here and there.

Her children chose a spot near her oldest son’s and first husband’s spot. At our cemetery we bury our own.

The various folks gathered for pictures then, a prayer by the family matriarch, and “I’ll Fly Away” was sung. It is an understatement to say our services are not scripted.

I like the way her spot was dressed out.

 In this picture the old lady on the left is the last survivor of twelve children. Second and third generations are in the picture. The young lady on the far right in the purple dress is “with child”. So, four generations. 

Visiting my father’s grave, you can see the ten year long fight with badgers is still being fought. My father would have found it highly amusing that his grave would become a badger den.

The last time I was there velvet scraped from a deer antler was in the tree. Now, on the upper left is a “shed” horn. Since my father was a lifelong subsistence hunter and poacher, it is fitting deer now trample his grave. He would have approved.

Going to and back I took my time and will post some pictures in a future blog. I made it a point to stop in Walden, CO Cemetery to pay respects to some of my maternal relatives.

Fear not, pointless inflammatory  rants and raves will soon appear in this space.