Section 1, Block 1, Lot 70
Summit View Cemetery
1808 North Pine St.
Guthrie, Logan Co, OK
Thomas P. CUPPb. 17 January 1854, Fayette Co, PA
d. 16 July 1898, Guthrie, Logan Co, OT (OK Terr)
[The stone's color and marbling make it nearly illegible.]
I've posted elsewhere about the grisly deaths and hasty burial
of great-grand uncle Tom's widow and daughter.
In mid-January, I had the chance to go to Oklahoma, and Guthrie happened to be our exit from I-35. On the way back the next day, I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to (finally!) visit Emma and Dovie's unmarked grave.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that I didn't have to stop to ask directions. Oklahoma post signs to its cemeteries the same size and shape as the familiar green city limits signs. However, they only say "CEMETERY", not the cemetery's name, with an arrow pointing the way. But I'm guessing this saves rural residents the hassle of directing out-of-towners to obscure or forgotten cems. On seeing "CEMETERY", visitors only have to turn whichever way on the next road and keep going until the graveyard comes into view.
How simple is that? Every state should have such signs.
At any rate, to reach Summit View, take exit 157, go west past Love's (gas there is much cheaper than anywhere else near I-35, btw) and Arby's to the stop light. Turn right, and same as out in the country, keep going until a cem comes into view. Be aware, though, that you'll come to another cem first - Memorial Gardens, if memory serves. The gates to Summit View are a little farther on.
I headed for any building that looked like an office. That building also happens to be the break room for the grounds crew, and as it happened to be close to noon, I inadvertently interrupted their lunch hour.
Not a problem. A very nice man (whose name, alas, I didn't get) was quite happy to accompany me to the Cupp-Hummer graves, which were only a short walk from the office. So short, in fact, that I left my car at the office and even though it was a chilly, windy day, I wasn't frozen to the bone when I got back to it.
A lot at Summit View contains six spaces (graves). Tom Cupp is in NW (northwest), widow Emma and daughter Dovie in SW (southwest), and Emma's father, W.M. Hummer, in WC (west central). I didn't recognize any of the names on the stones in the remaining three spaces (although I might research Sam Cash just for fun).
Until a few years ago, 14-year-old Dovie was an "Unnamed infant" in the cemetery's records, probably because only an infant would be buried with its mother. The recs now mysteriously show her as "Ethel". She was always "Dove" or "Dovie" in family records and correspondence, so I'm guessing "Dovie" was short for "Dove Ethel".
Alas, we may never know, but at least she's no longer "Unnamed infant".
Summit View, btw, is more well-known as the burial site of several 1890s outlaws, the most famous being Bill Doolin of the Doolin-Dalton Gang, whom the Eagles immortalized in the song "Doolin Dalton" on their 1973 Desperado album.
Dovie and brother Robyn
Guthrie OK & the Cupps
Emma's father Wm. Martin Hummer
Dovie's Aunt Mary (Hummer) Whelan Cupp
Dovie's dad's side of the family
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