Friday, 8 August 2008

Found an Unmarked Grave!

Today began with a phone call which let us know that Margaret and Roger were in hospital!

We had decided to return to Chard and search the cemetery which we'd found while online yesterday so while Mike went to the Library where burial records are held, I went to the Guest House to try and find out what had happened to the others. It appeared that Roger had suffered a DVT on the long haul flight and he had a small clot on his lung. He had been admitted and would be spending at least two nights in hospital and Margaret was having a scan on her leg as it was swollen and they wanted to make sure that she didn't have a similar problem. Poor things. Not a good start to their holiday in the UK.

In the meantime Mike was very excited because he'd found a burial record for Walter Johnson (his 2nd great grandfather) who died in 1890 and Ann Amelia Hoare (Walter's wife) who died in 1922.

We had a grave number and directions to find the plot - at last - some success! We drove round to the cemetery carpark and entered the gates. It was huge! We'd been told it was in Section A but there are no markers anywhere so we hadn't a clue where Section A could be. We eventually found a very helpful man who told us where to look but we still couldn't find it. He re-appeared with a chart and found the spot for us - Grave 173 was un-marked! Mike picked some leaves and laid them on the grass so we could take a photo for our records.

It is such a shame when there is no headstone but at least we now know where they are resting.

No comments: