My definition of a "Crying Shame"

        Rita and I maintain a cemetery. No big deal, 35 miles North of Hingham there was once a Catholic Church, St. Wencelaws, not even close on the spelling but think of that Christmas song Old King Wencelaws. Whatever, Rita's Grandfather Homesteaded a few miles away, around 1910, and was a member of the parish. the community was known as Goldstone ,A very inhospitable place to begin life in America, He and his wife spent the most of their first year living under a wagon with canvas tarp as the walls. As soon as possible they had a shack that would be called home, in time for their first baby, a girl named Mary. That is where the cemetary comes into the story. A very severe influenza went thru the area , starting with Baby Schweitzer it took the lives of sixteen children one of which  was One Year old Mary Lipp. These were the first graves in the St Wencelaws Cemetary, the Headstones are names Like Fischer, Holzer, Warhank, and Schweitzer. This is where the Crying Shame is. Thru the years the Church was abandoned and torn down and sadly the Catholic Church abandoned the Cemetary. Left to grass overgrown and tumbleweeds piled four feet high all around, the Corpus , which is the statue of Christ on the Cross in the middle of the Cemetary was missing a leg and an arm, but still there. The worst thing of all there are nothing but homemade small crosses marking 16 graves, no names, no dates. The Catholic Church says there is no record of any kind to tell us who is in those graves. I can't tell you how upsetting it is to be weed eating around them and not knowing . Rita's Dad said he always thought they were the children who died in the epidemic that got just the cross's. We might never know, but I do know that Governor  Schweitzer has both Grandparents buried there, Grandma Schweitzer, as she was called by all the children in Hingham was the last buried, in 1961. Sounds like Brian is going to run for the Senate so we will be hearing again about his roots in Montana, Hey B.S. if you want to know where your beloved Grampa and Gramma are buried, call me I'll show you. Since it is Memorial Day tomorrow and our thoughts turn to our loved ones who are no longer with us, maybe you will say a prayer for those sixteen souls who have been forgotten by most , but not by Blackjack.