A Little Family History Research

Being interested in history, especially family history, our vacation included a little 'sleuthing' time...searching out some graves. Our first cemetery was in the south part of Lincoln City, where the little town of Taft used to be. They had a nice new sign for their Pioneer Cemetery. My great aunt is buried there.
My mother came from a family of 8 children, and when their mother died in 1935 my mother and her sister were both sent to live with Aunts. My Aunt Joyce was sent to their Aunt Mae, who lived in Taft. My mother was sent to live with their Aunt Minnie who lived in Seattle. Aunt Joyce was lucky enough to finish growing up on the Oregon Coast here in Taft, where she graduated from High School. Great Aunt Mae was an early resident of Taft, and it was here she died and was buried.

Her full name was 'Louie Mae Erskine Sawyer' and she lived from 1881-1939. We found her gravestone without too much trouble and then enjoyed the beautiful view of the ocean from the cemetery, which is perched high on a hill.

The second cemetery we set out to find was on our way home. We decided to drive to Roseburg, Oregon to find the burial place of the Insurance Man's great-great-grandfather, Sampson McConnell. Our Grandma Brown, his granddaughter had written down that he was buried next to the old soldiers home in Roseburg. When we got there we found that things had changed in the intervening years. What was once just a single building is now a gigantic National VA Affairs Medical Center, with many beautiful buildings on several acres of grounds. We drove up to the main office just as it was closing, and a lady walking to her car asked if she could help. She knew where the cemetery was, but did not know which would have been the oldest building. Soon another man came along who did know, and we were off on our hunt once again. Not too far away we found what was the 'old soldiers home' from 1895-1930,s. It is not now in the VA Complex, but is used as the Roseburg Performing Arts Center.

All the buildings on the VA grounds were built after the U.S. Government established the Dept. of Veterans Affairs and took over this building. The other buildings were built in the same style of brick with white columns, and it is like a beautiful University Campus. We were glad to find the building and also a little of it's history. Established in 1895 to serve as a home for any Veteran of the United States Military until they died. The cemetery was right next door, and established about the same time.

It is a small military cemetery, but nicely kept up and very pretty with the white headstones and green grass.

I had looked up the cemetery before we left home and had what I thought was the location of Sampson's grave. We counted out the rows and spaces and found his wife, Mary who died in 1915....13 years after her husband. But no Sampson to be found. We walked the cemetery (the Insurance man has done this many times before) but still could not locate the gravestone. A little tired and discouraged, we went back to our motel. It was a modest motel, run by a very nice Polish couple. After hearing what we had been doing, he offered us a computer to search on. I found a listing for Sampson with a different location shown, so back to the cemetery we went about sunset. Sure enough, we had missed the stone. Sampson died in 1902, and was one of the early graves in the cemetery. The headstone was rather difficult to read, at least that's what we told ourselves. We were thrilled to find him...at least his gravestone.

Here is his nice simple white headstone. It reads: "S. McConnel, CO. B, 2nd ORE. M.I." There are no dates, but he lived from April 1829- May of 1902. He was in the Oregon Military, and fought in the Rogue River Indian Wars in a Mounted Calvary division. Most of the men in this cemetery were from the Indian Wars. We thought it unique that his wife Mary Hill McConnell was buried there also, as she was not in the military, and we did not see any other wives.

Sampson was a very interesting man. He crossed the United States when he was about 20 in 1849 by ox and wagon, to become part of the 'California Gold Rush'. After mining a while and doing well he returned to his native Missouri, via the Panama Isthmus to marry Sarah Louisa Neely. After collecting Sarah, and all her large family, as well as some of his own family members they formed a wagon train and again crossed the United States on the Oregon Trail. They took out land claims in western Lane County, but Sampson was no farmer and spent the rest of his life as an adventurer, miner and carpenter. He mined all around the southern part of the state and as I said even fought the Indians. He was married three times, and had a total of 7 children. He was a caring Christian man, and served as an elder/deacon in the Baptist Church of Eugene. He developed diabetes in his older age, and entered the Soldiers home in Roseburg before the end of the century, where he had to have a leg amputated. Dying in 1902, he was buried in this beautiful small cemetery.

Here is the headstone of his third wife Mary. It was an interesting hunt to find them, but very satisfying when all is done and recorded. I am glad that his military service was honored, and am glad to keep that memory alive.