I Asked--I Received

   

      Milo Galloway, the brother of my 3rd great grandfather Russell, was buried in 1857 in the Willow Avenue Cemetery in Newark, New York now known as the North Main Street Cemetery.  His wife Ann is there too along with several children, but I couldn't find any of their resting places.  None of the online inventories of this cemetery or the book of it's burials found at Ancestry.com listed Milo or his family members among the denizens.  This led me to believe he didn't have a tombstone or that it had long ago deteriorated to the point it was illegible.

     I didn't expect to find a stone for Ann since she passed away years after Milo's financial empire had crumbled and she had begun to appear in the lists of the overseer of the poor.  Even back in 1886 when Ann died, tombstones were not cheap.

     When I was at the Palmyra Library, the memorable day that I found the picture of Anna Hazel, I also looked at the family file for Galloway.  As I expected it was all about the Palmyra Galloways, not my Arcadia Galloways.  I almost put it back in the filing cabinet, but figured I might as well thumb through to the end since Arcadia is right next door to Palmyra and you never know...  It's a good thing I persevered, the last item in the file was about Milo and his family.  It confirmed my belief that his wife was the former Ann Rowley, and there on the second page was a photo, (a bad one but still a photo), of his tombstone and those of his son Milo Jr. and daughter Emily.  I didn't know about this daughter before!  I went to the cemetery again, but had no luck this time either.

     It occurred to me there had to be a true listing of burials somewhere or else the embarrassing disinterment of a coffin could result during a new burial.  I looked online for a cemetery office and learned it was owned and maintained by the village of Newark.  I sent them an e-mail asking about the Galloways, and within one day I had my answer, old front section, 12 rows back from the fence.  I also received a listing of the surrounding graves so I could locate the Galloways more easily.

     I'm sure you know what's coming next, I must return to Newark and find those graves!  I don't even know why?  I know they're there, I even have the details from the cemetery records concerning dates and ages. Those stones are most likely unreadable and I will learn nothing more about this family or the circumstances of their deaths.  And yet, I must go.  Perhaps because he was my uncle, and after delving (snooping) so much into his past I should at least go and pay my respects, say hello to this branch of my family only recently discovered.