Sunday, December 05, 2010

Visting The Dead

I woke up Friday morning and mom asked me what I wanted to do. I was at a loss, but then In saw the brochure for the National Cemetery In Mound City, IL. since it was only 40 miles, we made it a day trip

Mound City was the site of a major hospital in the civil war. It was established to bury the dead from that war and has open for free burials for all honorably discharged veterans ever since. Their signature is a tower erected by the State of Illinois to honor their dead.

I wandered about and found a burial guide Since one of my ancestors was a Confederate Veteran who disappeared near here, I took a look, no such luck.
We then went over to Mound City Itself. It. like Cairo,it is but a shell of its former glory. I did bid adieu to the Beautiful River(Ohio) at the fisherman's memorial.

We then headed back to Cape Girardeau and made the mandatory stop at Hutson's Furniture for their Christmas window

I then walked around downtown while mom browsed through the second hand stores
“Old Man river”

Looking up at The Common Pleas Courthouse:

and yes, at my advanced age, I can make it up the stairs:

it had been a while since I had checked on one of my inspirations for writing, so on to our next stop
Yep, Major Lorimer is still there.

I wish I could have spent more time, but my mom was still in the car.
Saturday, I returned the Rental car. We went over to visit dad's Grave in Jackson.

I then asked my mom if she would like to go to Old Appleton and Shawneetown. As you can Guess from the name, Shawneetown is where most of my fictional characters would have settled. I did get some photo of the old bridge over Apple Creek, but my mom was getting grouchy, so we settled for a driving tour of both of Shawneetown's blocks.



Doing research and spending time with my family reminds me of Jesus' parable about the slave with two masters. I think next time, I will probably let/insist on my Mom doing her own thing, While I wander to and fro about the earth in search of knowledge.
Sunday is our Christmas. So the next installment will be the trip back to LA.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Jana! This was quite interesting too! Can't wait for part 4! Keep it up! :-)

Mr.eNt said...

Its a great place to visited...:)