Meeting For The First Time

Lately I've really been interested in finding out as much as possible about who/where I come from, my ancestry. It all started out with wanting to know more about my Grandma (on my mom's side) who passed away when I was 16 years old. I had only met her a few times and I don't remember much about her. I asked my Mom a ton of questions and she answered what she could, but I still wanted to know more.

So I started searching on Ancestry for more information about her and then that led to great grandparents and great-great grandparents and so on and so on.. Then I thought it would be fun to find out as much as possible on my father's side next.

That led to a great discovery, My Great Grandfather (my father's mother's father) was buried in Reedsport Oregon, right off the Oregon Coast. Well, we were planning on going to the coast for our 10 year anniversary, so we decided while we were there we would stop by and pay our respects.

Here is the Welcome to Reedsport sign, when you first enter the town.

Here is the Cemetery.

This is what I found out online searching about my Great Grandfather:

1. He was born on August 14 1989 in Missouri
2. He was living in Idaho by the age of 22.
3. He married my Great Grandmother on October 3 1928 (he was 30 years old)
4. Sometime between 1933-1942 they got a divorce.
5. He joined the military on September 9 1942 in Oregon.
6. He married a woman by the name of Myrtle.
7. He lived along the Oregon Coast and worked as a Longshoreman (he was still working at the age of 58).
8. He died on September 14 1967 at the age of 69.

I still have so much more I want to know about him, but this is probably as much as I will ever know. He has been gone for 46 years & my great grandmother has been gone for almost 10 years (this October). And my grandma (his daughter) has been gone for 9 years. So there is nobody really left that would be able to fill me in on more info about him.

It was exciting being able to go and see his gravesite. I was getting more and more nervous the closer we got to the cemetery. In a weird way, it's like meeting him for the first time. It was a very special moment to me.

 Continue to rest in peace great grandpa, I'll make sure I come visit you again!