A child's headstone of mystery
http://159.54.226.83/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050809/NEW...CAPI LYNN <
mailto:clynn@StatesmanJournal.com>
Statesman Journal
August 9, 2005
When Willard and Mary Brown moved to
Salem in 1978, they bought a 20-acre spread that included a farmhouse and several outbuildings.
As they were sprucing up the place, they discovered a tombstone behind the old pigsty.
They hadn't thought much about it until recently, when a woman contacted them to ask about the whereabouts of a nearby cemetery.
Now, 27 years since they found it, the white marble monument that has remained propped against the back of the pigsty soon might be placed where it belongs.
It was by chance that Ferne
Hellie, a genealogical researcher, learned about the discarded tombstone. She was trying to find
Halls Ferry Cemetery off River Road S. A colleague, Tracey Saucy, wanted to include the cemetery in an online project.
After having no luck,
Hellie jotted down a name off a mailbox in the area -- the Browns -- and gave them a call.
Mary answered but said that she couldn't be of much help.
"I don't know about the cemetery," she told
Hellie, "but we've got a tombstone."
Hellie wanted to know more, so she asked Mary to jot down the inscription.
ELLA
OLIVEdau. of
J & M
KUYKENDALLDIED
Nov. 7, 1863:
aged 3 yrs.
5 mo. & 21 ds.
Hellie was determined to find out who Ella was, where she was buried and, if possible, why her tombstone was discarded on a South
Salem farm.
"Ferne loves a mystery," said
Addie Rickey, who helped with the search.
The three women, who do genealogical research for
Salem Pioneer Cemetery, began scouring census documents, land records and obituaries to find out what they could about the
KUYKENDALL family.
"We're the diggers,"
Hellie said with a chuckle.
All the while, Hellie's mind raced with theories about how the tombstone wound up on the property off River Road S.
Did it belong among the others at
Halls Ferry Cemetery, which is about 1 1/2 miles from the Browns' place?
Did it fall off a train more than 140 years ago, on its way to the little girl's burial site? The Browns' property is split by railroad tracks.
Or was it left there when William K. Kuykendall lived in the area in the 1890s while serving in the state Legislature? He was Ella's brother.
"It might be he had the stone made for her and never placed it,"
Hellie said.
After their initial research,
Hellie and her cohorts learned that Ella was the daughter of pioneers John and Malinda
KUYKENDALL. They ventured to
Oregon in 1852, about eight years before Ella was born.
The Kuykendalls had 12 children; Ella was the third-youngest.
She died in
Wilbur, a small town just north of
Roseburg, according to an obituary
Hellie found in two newspapers, including the
Weekly Oregon Statesman. The Jacksonville-Oregon Sentinel reported that Ella died of scarlet fever and diphtheria. Neither indicated where she was buried.
The
Douglas County Genealogical Society had no record of any Kuykendalls being buried in the town's cemetery. Wilbur is in
Douglas County,
"We've read that cemetery twice," said Kay
Livermore, who spearheaded the county's cemetery project.
It is possible,
Livermore acknowledged, that Ella could have been buried there but her grave site never was marked.
Mary Brown did a bit of research of her own, contacting the man who sold them the property. Robert
Irving Jr., who now lives in
Pendleton, added to the mystery.
His father once owned property in the
Wilbur area. He remembers that, while growing up there in the 1940s, there was an old, abandoned cemetery on a ridge. All of the remains, he said, were removed and placed at a newer cemetery in
Wilbur.
"Several of the stones were lying helter-skelter in the brush,"
Irving said. "My folks moved them down to the house and used them for a walkway."
The
Oregon Burial
Site Guide lists an Old
Wilbur Cemetery, also known as Umpqua Academy Cemetery. It was on the donation land claim of James H. Wilbur, a prominent pioneer missionary of the Methodist church.
He and Ella's father were good friends and teamed to build a two-story school they named Umpqua Academy, according to the family history compiled by George B. Kuykendall, the eldest son of the John and Malinda
KUYKENDALL.
Given the family connection, it is possible little Ella could have been buried in the cemetery on Wilbur's property. The burial-site guide says most of the graves were moved to the present
Wilbur Cemetery.
Perhaps it was the same cemetery that
Irving Jr. remembers as a child.
His folks left
Wilbur and bought the property on River Road S in the 1950s. Ella's tombstone presumably was packed up and moved with their other belongings.
The monument, which is about 2 feet tall, 1 foot wide and 1 1/2 inches thick, is in remarkably good condition for being possibly 142 years old.
It has been protected from the weather by an overhang along the back of the outbuilding that the Browns were told once was used as a pigsty.
"We think it should be somewhere where this child is recorded, rather than forgotten behind our pigsty," Mary Brown said.
If they are unable to find Ella's gravesite,
Hellie said, an alternative would be to inquire about placing the tombstone near her parents' graves.
John and Malinda
KUYKENDALL were interred at Eugene Pioneer Cemetery, formerly known as
Odd Fellows Cemetery, which is on the University of
Oregon campus.
They are among eight Kuykendalls listed in the cemetery registry, according to the USGenWeb Tombstone Transcription Project found at
www.rootsweb.com <
http://www.rootsweb.com>;.
Hellie said she also will attempt to locate descendants.
The Browns say they appreciate all the time and effort from
Hellie and her colleagues.
"I just hope something comes of it," Willard Brown said, "so we can put that tombstone to rest."