I don't recall ever seeing a stone that looked "creamy" like bleu cheese. The photo here doesn't do it justice.
It's at Saint Joseph's Catholic Cemetery, north of Hoyt, Jackson Co, Kansas. The non-Catholic cemetery, called Hoyt Cemetery, is straight west of town. Two Find A Grave requests for that Hoyt Cemetery prompted a slight detour from Highway 75 into Hoyt.
Who would've guessed a town of not quite 600 would have two cemeteries? Certainly not I when I stopped at the grocery store on the north edge of town to ask directions to "the cemetery". Two people immediately answered "Straight up the road!" without asking 'which cemetery?'.
So off my friend Lisa and I went in the LisaMobile. The wrought iron sign along the chain link fence even said "Hoyt". Since I was looking for a McCullough and a Hendricks, the "St Joseph Catholic" underneath didn't send up a red flag that we were in the wrong cemetery.
Well, naturally I didn't find Mr. McCullough or Ms. Hendricks, because they're several miles away in the real Hoyt Cemetery. But what the heck, it was a sunny day and there were fresh batteries in the camera, so I snapped pix as I went up and down the rows. Thankfully, it's not a very big cemetery - at most 200 hundred graves, if that many.
John J. HALLORAN's creamy monument is in the east half. As the inscription says, he was born in 1851 in County "Limrick" [Limerick], Ireland. Sometime before 1883, the year he married a 13-yr-old Irish lass named Bridget, he came to America. He's possibly the 29-yr-old John J. Halloran shown in the 1880 census of New York City with father Edward and brother Patrick, but I can't verify that without a trip to the KS Historical Society to look at this John's obituary.
At any rate, John and Bridget's first child, Mary, arrived in December 1883. She was followed by Michael (1886), Katie (1887), James (1888), Elizabeth (1891), John T. (1892), Agnes (1894), Hubert V. (1895), and Patrick (1898).
There may still be descendants in the area, because the rose bush (with real thorns) growing around John's stone appears to be tended to regularly, not scraggly as rose bushes get when left to grow wild.
And if you see a jug of water next to a potted plant, please give the plant a drink. Thanks!
2 comments:
Well I am now a fan of tombstone Tuesday-- hope you do this every week. What a great idea
I feel like I know John Halloran now
Would love to take credit for the idea, but it's a blog prompt from GeneaBloggers. Since I have gravestone photos galore, I have no excuse for not making it a weekly post here.
John Halloran's stone was just too pretty not to share. Glad you like it!
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