Success

In Another Try from May 16, we finally came to the end of Bonnie and Al's search for the DeHart homestead and Cemetery. At times it has been a little confusing, but I have tried to stay true to her writing.

  I am repeating the last paragraph from the last segment since it is the successful part.

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I called to Al and said, "I think I've found it.  Over he came and as we walked closer we could see some stones.  What we'd hope to find was here. What a feeling it was. I guess I was coming to see someone I knew.  My Grandma DeHart Borden was born near here.  There were grandparent here.  While standing here, I wondered when anyone had been here last.  Al said, "This makes our trip"

We started looking at some stones.  A few were still standing. Some had fallen and broken.

Some had just fallen down.

 We went walking around trees which  had fallen down and weeds as high as some of the stones.  We found some stones sticking out of the ground by only one or two inches. It was laid out like a cemetery but the stones were almost covered up. We knew a lot of them all were completely covered up just from the years.  Some of the headstones were a slab of stone like off the cliff of rock we'd seen coming down on the road.  We tried to dig down to find writing but had no tools, just a stick.  We couldn't find writing on most of them.  We found one small stone that had S.A.D. I think it could have been for Samuel DeHart. There was no date. Toward the back of the cemetery there were stones with Dixon on them.  Looking at records later we found a DeHart girl married a Dixon.

We took our pictures, tried to chalk some of the stones so we could read them, but most of them were too old to read or mostly buried.  As we sat there resting and we talking and wondered about their life.  How hard it must have been to have lived in their time.  What hardships they had.  Also we wondered when the last person had been here. There had been no care taken of the cemetery, a fence was still around it but was of barbwire, broken down with trees growing through out weeds, the  undergrowth, and the fallen trees. Kinda [sic] not wanting to leave and knowing we could do no more.  I knew that Abraham DeHart was at rest with some of his family here.

We packed up our pillowcase, went out and shut the little gate or what there was of it.  We looked back now and then until the trees were in the way. We both smiled, got back on the little road again and started up to the top of the hill. In the break of the trees, we  looked out over the mountain still wondering why they settled down in a valley instead of on top.