Cemetery Serendipity!

CEMETERY SERENDIPITY! 

by 

Karen Utter Jennings 

My brother, Bill signed up to canvass the Rocky Comfort, Missouri cemetery that is located in the extreme SE corner of McDonald County at the Prosperity Baptist Church. The cemetery itself is actually in Newton County. When Bill told me of his huge endeavor, I volunteered to help him...for several reasons. 1. Time with my wonderful brother 2. Safety as he won't be alone 3. I enjoy cemetery headstone art & funerary symbols, so this was a good chance to find those headstones and symbols and photograph them to add to my collection 4. Many family members are buried there, so it is a chance to find their graves & photograph them.

On my first day with Bill, he told me about a headstone he found down in the southwest corner of the cemetery and said the stone had "colored" on it, so it must be an African-American buried there. Sure enough, the headstone read "to the sacred memory of Ike ~ colored" and his death date.

Bill and I talked about Ike and who he might have been, a slave possibly? We were happy that he was buried in the cemetery among other folks and not put away somewhere in a corner of the cemetery where no one would ever find his grave... I told Bill that I would try and find out about Ike and his life. Bill told me I should post some of my photographs of the headstones and symbols on the headstones on my Facebook page. 

When I got home, I immediately began research to find out about Ike. First, I put Ike's name and death date into a family tree on Ancestry.com. Then I posted to my Facebook page about my joining Bill to canvass the RC cemetery and posted several pictures. One was of Ike's headstone. 

I had several friends on Facebook comment on the photographs and in particular, Ike. One of my cousins asked if the word "COLORED" on the headstone might be "Coldred", Ike's last name and not "colored."  I hadn't thought of that, so while I searched on Ancestry.com, I also searched for that surname. A couple of my Facebook friends commented that they thought there was a Christian family in Rocky who at one time owned slaves. 

And so my research continued; my friends comments proved to be the hints that I needed. Within a couple of hours, I had solved the mystery! Ike's name was Isaac Haden, born in Arkansas and he was a negro who lived with the Nancy Christian family in Rocky Comfort, Missouri. I found Ike's obituary on the McDonald County Missouri site which gave information that he was a servant to the Christian family.

I was astounded because a couple of weeks before this, I had researched the Yonce sisters of McDonald County, Missouri, for a newsletter article. Lucy Jane Yonce had married W.C. Christian and they lived in Rocky Comfort. William Christian's mother was Nancy Christian! 

And so, my first day out on a cemetery excursion with my beloved brother, I found serendipity in that cemetery. Here's to your memory, Ike Haden!