April 12, 2010

pilgrimage

The Garden of Memories Cemetery outside Trent, Texas is not the most picturesque I've visited but my purpose on Sunday was a personal pilgrimage. I knew my grandparents were from the Trent/Merkel area but hadn't really thought about my great-grandparents whom I did not know. My trip to Abilene afforded me the opportunity to look for their graves. I found Ivy and Elijah in the Howell plot. "Mamaw" Ivy Boyd Howell was mother to 8 sons and 4 daughters, including my grandmother Burma Mae. What I didn't expect to find in the plot was the headstone for my great-grandmother - born April 5, 1855 and died March ?, 1915 (some of the carving on the older marble tombstones is illegible). A sad observation about this lady, other than her short life, is her lack of individual identity. She is known only as "Mrs. A. P. Boyd."