Osage Cemetery

My paternal grandfather Lyman Edward Haight was born in Osage, Iowa. Today we drove back to Iowa to the Osage Cemetery where we wanted to look for the graves of my paternal grandfathers Jacob Haight and James McGrath.

I was a little concerned whether we would be able to locate either set of great-greats after I read on the website of "Look Up Graves," that there were over 7000 graves in this cemetery! But I was very pleased to find a very good directory near the cemetery gates.

The cemetery is divided into blocks and then the blocks contain raised numbered "lots" which have a number of family graves, usually 8 or 10. We found Lot 0070 where James McGrath was supposed to be buried. But this stone for Edward McGrath was the only one in the whole section...

We think if reads 1866, but everything is pretty illegible --

The whole raised area where Forry is kneeling is 0070, but there are no other markers here.

Next we went to Section 0021 and were happy to find this large plinth marking the grave of my Great-Great Grandfather Jacob Haight.

 

The stone also names Jacob's second wife, my great-great grandmother Margaret "Sally" Smith. His first wife (and mother of his first seven children) apparently is buried in New York.

 

These smaller stones were in front of the large plinth --

It's interesting that on the large stone she's called Margaret, and on this one it's Sally...

There was also a stone of this size for Jacob's third wife who is also buried here.

I knew from what Cousin Terri had told me that there were more McGraths buried in this cemetery, so we went back to the directory which sent us to Section 0891 where we found this large McBrath stone surrounded by eight other small stones.

Right in front of the large stone were these two stones for "Father" and "Mother" with no other names on them. HOWEVER, the dates match those of Great-great grandfather James McGrath 1826-1878.

And of Great-great grandmother Margaret McFarland McGrath, 1834-1920!

Were these stones added later? Perhaps following her death? Is James actually buried here? Or is he back there in Section 0070? According to the cemetery brochure, "Burial records in the early years of the cemetery are somewhat sketchy and for some years are not even in existence....According to a 1935 newspaper article, markers are not necessarily placed where the person is buried."

It's an interesting mystery anyway.

We also found listed in the Cemetery Directory one Hardt burial. It's listed as Hardt Baby Boy, August 2, 1913 with the burial site noted as the Potter's Field section of the cemetery (this area is in one corner of the oldest part of the cemetery and has no markers whatsoever...). Another mystery to ponder.