Amanda Shirley

she is not related. she was the murdered neighbor of my great grandparents Tom & Gilly Mae Maxwell, living on further up the dirt road from them. this was someone they knew, and Tom was the first one her husband summoned when he came home & found his dead wife in the house with their young daughter. Tom many years later told his grandchildren he worried that he might be a suspect since he was out working in the fields all that day.
She was a young woman with young children.
as far as my research showed, this was never solved. forensics weren't quite as good in 1911...

Amanda L.
aug 9 1884
Sept 17 1911
wife of JE Shirley

Cynthia Whitt Creswell

this is a newer stone at Cat Creek Cemetery, I am sure my great aunt Minerva Maxwell Brown had it put there. it has a portrait.

Cynthia Whitt Creswell
1815-1895
wife of John Yancy Creswell
1814-1877
married Oct 15 1837
they donated an acre of land for the Cat Creek Cemetery in 1845

the 1964 transcription:
Chreswell Cynthia
(no dates)

Laura G. & Erastus Harrison & Slyvia Hill

Harriett Harrison Maxwell was buried by the graves of two of her children at Cat Creek, the stones are old & hard to read. from the cemetery transcription 1964:

Laura
26 Aug 1858
01 June 1867
dau of Alex & Harriett

Erastus
03 Dec 1861
01 Jan 1862
dau. of Alex & Harriett
I.H.M.H.
(this is wrong, Erastus was a son)

I don't think I photographed Syria Hills grave, she is the young cousin who drowned with Laura.

Syria N. Hill
08 Jan 1851
01 Jun 1867

Harriett Hughes Harrison

when we got to Mt. Pleasant Cemetery No. 1 (Cat Creek), we always encounter the holy bible shaped gravestone of Harriett Hughes Harrison first. she was the second wife of my great great grandpa JC Maxwell. her first husband was killed in the Civil War. She lost her baby boy Erastus when he was a month old in 1862 & she lost Laura who drowned in Cat Creek at age 8 in 1867. as JC's wife she ran a post office out of her own home. she fascinated me. she was buried with neither husband, but has a large stone near her lost children. will have to find her biography to post.

have a transcription of stones made in 1964, but it doesn't have the verse we couldn't quite make out on it....

Harriett Harrison
wife of JC Maxwell
Aug 29 1829- Feb 21 1911

"Earth has lost its look of gladness
Heaven seems to see more ________"

Dottie Higdon

from Katie's facebook:
Katiє Dailєy 2day we decorated graves...i always get really sad when i visit a certain grave of a baby named Dottie......we hav this wierd bond. its totally........ghost whisperer! lol
Victoria Terabelian-Mckinney i would get really sad too! just think they'll are in a better place!
Katiє Dailєy yeah.....she just never got much time to live. she was alive 9 1/2 hours........this status is kind of a downer! lol

Dottie
daughter of P & MA Higdon
died Nov 21 1885
aged 9 1/2 hours

she has a tiny stone & was the only one of this family who was laid to rest at Springer Chapel Cemetery, located right on East Hwy CC between 136
& Brimson.

Katie & I always wondered what happened...was she premature? injured somehow? crib death? her parents had a large family, but I'm sure that didn't make her loss hurt any less.

Memorial Day Weekend 2010

"Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor..." General John Logan, General Order No. 11, May 5, 1868

many years ago when Katie was small we started decorating 'baby' graves at Brimson. in the beginning it was fresh flowers from the yard, but now we have a collection of stuffed animals & fake flowers. we added a couple of flags for my great uncle Dale & great great grandpa JC Maxwell, who served in WWII & the Civil War, respectively. and flowers for great (great great!) grandmas. and a flower for poor Amanda Shirley, my great grandparents neighbor who was murdered in her own house in broad daylight & as far as I can figure from newspaper accounts, the murder was never solved. that was in 1911. I also decorate JC Maxwell's second wife Harriett Hughes HArrisons grave, and those of her children, who arent' really related...

so, I'll post pictures of this years decorating...Katie requested not to be in the pics this year. I took along a notebook to write down inscriptions that I could read, etc. the kids & I spent several summers traveling to our local cemeteries & chalking & photographing gravestones...not sure I can find these notes now, though...and some of the stones at Cat Creek are just so old and unreadable now.

We always decorate at Springer Chapel & Cat Creek Cemeteries on Hwy CC East by Brimson.

Koren!

she gave me her latest alumni magazine....
Spring 2010
Western The Magazine of Missouri Western State University

Alum Notes
KOREN DAILEY, '08, and Cody Wills were married Sept. 19, 2009. The couple resides in Oak Grove, MO.