St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Cemetery

The St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Cemetery is located on East Main Street in Marblehead, Ottawa County, Ohio. St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church is part of the Eparchy of Parma. You can see Lake Erie from the cemetery, and the Marblehead Lighthouse is just around the bend of the Marblehead Peninsula.

















A three bar cross can be found on many of the tombstones in the St Mary Byzantine Catholic Cemetery.













Over one hundred interments from the St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Cemetery can be viewed online at FindaGrave.

The annual Halupki Festival is celebrated every August just across the road from the St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Cemetery on the lawn behind the Holy Assumption Orthodox Church. Many Eastern European dishes are served at the Halupki Festival, and live polka bands provide live entertainment throughout the day.

Joseph Washburn Muenscher, 1826-1849

Joseph Washburn Muenscher was born in South Leicester, Massachusetts on September 21, 1826, to Rev. Joseph Muenscher and his wife, the former Ruth Washburn. A brief biographical of sketch of Joseph W. Muenscher is found on page 190 of the book entitled Samuel Davis, of Oxford, Mass., and Joseph Davis, of Dudley, Mass., and Their Descendants, written by George L. Davis George F. Daniels in North Andover, Massachusetts in 1884.






The promising young lawyer died at age 22 during Sandusky's cholera epidemic in 1849. He was buried in Sandusky, Ohio. Oakland Cemetery did not begin accepting burials until 1850, so it is likely that Joseph W. Muenscher may have first been interred at the Cholera Cemetery in Sandusky, and his remains moved to Oakland Cemetery after it opened. Joseph W. Muenscher's sister, Eliza C. Muenscher, was the first wife of pioneer Sandusky merchant Austin Ferry.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, August 6, 2011

Another Saturday Night Genealogy Fun activity was posted by Randy, GeneaMusings:

Good evening, genea-heirheads (a new genea-word!) -- it's Saturday Night - time for more Genealogy Fun!!!

Your mission, if you decide to accept it is to:

1) Review Denise Levenick's (The Family Curator) three blog posts on the Present Photo Challenge. World Photography Day is coming up Aug 19, and this seemed like a fun thing to do something genealogy-wise.

* http://www.thefamilycurator.com/home/2011/7/27/the-past-is-present-genealogy-photo-challenge-for-world-phot.html

* http://www.thefamilycurator.com/home/2011/7/26/dear-photograph-35th-wedding-anniversary-edition-for-tech-tu.html

* http://www.thefamilycurator.com/home/2011/8/3/5-tips-for-snapping-the-perfect-dear-photograph-picture-a-no.html

2) Identify one or more photographs from your own photograph collection that you could use for the Present Photo Challenge.

3) Show us the photographs that you could use on your blog, a Facebook status or a Google Plus Stream.

4) Please post a link on Denise's blog about your blog post, and/or on this blog post linking to your blog post.
*****************************************************************

Well, I packed up a few members of my family, and we headed to downtown Sandusky to try to re-capture some family moments from the past. I am very much an amateur, and I could not get the right angle or perspective....but here are my results. All are pictures of my Great Grandmother Irene Risko in the early 1950's outside her apartment building on West Market Street in Sandusky, Ohio. In the first shot, the perspective is off, but you can still see my great grandma fairly well.






















Here is the next attempt; it is a little better, but still too low.





















The third try had a bit better perspective, but the original photo of Gram Irene is blurry!






















So, I do not think these pictures merit being submitted to Dear Photograph, but I wanted to share my attempts with you. We had a lot of fun in the process, and told a lot of stories during the drive there!

The caption for this shot, had it turned out, would have been, Dear Photograph, Everyone in downtown Sandusky misses you Gram Irene, and so do I!

Dr. Eben S. Lane

In Helen Hansen's AT HOME IN EARLY SANDUSKY, we read that Ebenezer Shaw Lane was born in August 1819 to Ebenezer Lane and Frances Ann Griswold Lane. When young Ebenezer (later called Eben, probably to avoid confusion with his father) was only two years old, the family moved from Elyria to Norwalk, by horseback. Dr. Eben Lane was in partnership with Dr. Aaron Austin and Dr. I. P. Randell in 1844. During the cholera epidemic of 1849, Dr. Lane worked tirelessly.

Pallas Anderson, daughter of Sandusky's first physician, Dr. George Anderson, became the wife of Dr. Lane. In 1870, Dr. Lane moved his family to Chicago. Dr. Eben S. Lane died in Chicago on January 3, 1893. He is buried in Block 11 of Sandusky's Oakland Cemetery. Several members of the Lane family are in this section, with identical tombstones.

The former home of Dr. Eben S. Lane is pictured on page 56 of AT HOME IN EARLY SANDUSKY. The home, located at 318 Huron Avenue in Sandusky, was later occupied by Mr. and Mrs. John H. Hudson.

A Look at the Will of Charles Cross

Recently I had an opportunity to view the will of my fourth great grandfather Charles Cross. His will, now on microfiche at the Erie County Courthouse,was Case #1028 in Erie County Probate Court, which was filed at the Courthouse shortly after the death of Charles Cross on November, 18, 1889. Judge A.E. Merrill was the judge of Erie County Probate Court in 1889.

Some of the pages of the will were very difficult to read.






















The undertaker who handled my great great great great grandfather's funeral was J. Krupp & Son, on Market Street in Sandusky. Besides handling funerals and embalming, J. Krupp & Son were also furniture makers. The bill states that Charles Cross had a cloth casket with handles and a name plate, and eight hacks had been in use at his funeral.















The tombstone of Charles Cross was purchased from Christian Schlenk. The monument cost $65.00, and the engraving cost $24.00.





















Several members of the Cross family are remembered on this monument at St. Joseph's Cemetery in Sandusky, Ohio.


















This section of the will of Charles Cross gives the names and residences of his four surviving children. Sons James Cross and Charles A. Cross both lived in Sandusky, Ohio. Catherine/Katherine Dunham was living in Buffalo Gap in South Dakota. South Dakota had just become a state in the same month that Charles Cross died, so the state is listed simply as Dakota. Another daughter, Mary Cowell, was living in Antwerp, Ohio in 1889.
















A portion of the inventory of items in the household of Charles Cross included a listing of the titles of several books and periodicals. Charles Cross owned books about religion, travel, history, geography, and literature. He seems to have been a man of many interests!






















While I was unable to read every single word on this lengthy document, I certainly learned some interesting things about Great Great Great Great Grandfather Charles Cross! I am fortunate that the wills of many of my ancestors are on file right in my hometown. Now if there were only more hours in a day, so I could get on with that task!

A Blessing Came in the U.S. Mail

An Archivist with the Xaverian Brothers from Massachusetts mailed a special photocopy to me through the U.S. mail. It is from the Sixth Provincial Chapter, held in Baltimore, Maryland on June 26-27 1908. My great great granduncle, Nicholas Charles Cross, is pictured at the far left of the picture above. He later became known as Brother Sulpicius. As it was explained to me, the Chapters were held by persons in ministry in the Catholic church, so they could discuss the issues of the time.

I was so delighted to see this picture of Brother Sulpicius when he was a young man. He was about 40 years of age in 1908. Along with the photocopy of this 1908 picture was some information about the ministry of the Xaverian Brothers. Thank you so much my Archivist friend in Massachusetts!

Andrew Lytle

Andrew Lytle died on July 21, 1856, and he is buried in Oakland Cemetery. His stone has a chain with three links, which is an emblem associated with the International Order of Odd Fellows and symbolizes friendship, love, and truth. The nine pointed star on Andrew Lytle's tombstone may be a reference to the 8th degree of the Scottish Rite, a Masonic organization. Andrew Lytle appears in the Erie County 1850 Census, and his occupation was listed as a bookkeeper. His wife's name was Amanda. FamilySearch pulls up a marriage between Andrew Lytle and Amanda Blakster in Lorain County, Ohio on August 15, 1838.