Frazeysburg Cemetery

What a day. We got together this morning with Gene’s brother and his wife then drove over to Frazeysburg Cemetery where many Ashcrafts are buried. The cemetery is large, sitting between cornfields on two sides and highway 16 in the distance. The remoteness of the area has left the cemetery much as it was when Gene’s grandmother, Shelda, was buried there in 1952. We found graves of 93 Ashcrafts, which is a far greater number than I have identified in the family tree. I’ll be spending tomorrow going through each one of these names and trying to plug them in where they belong within the group. Among the tombstones were Gene’s grandfather, Charles S., his great grandfather, Josiah, and his great-great grandfather, Daniel A.

The search is on.

Over lunch at Longaberger’s, Doug related several stories from his childhood and memories of grandma Shelda. We had good laughs over several of these stories and were surprised at others. We did not know that Edna had sent Doug one summer to what she had called a “health camp”. The purpose was to fatten Doug up a little. Doug was a skinny little kid; that’s pretty obvious from his pictures. Doug didn’t like the camp—he didn’t like being away from home even though the camp facility was near his neighborhood. So every few days he would run away. He always ran to the safe haven at grandma Shelda’s. When the camp couldn’t find Doug, they’d call Edna, she would tell them to go to Shelda’s. It didn’t take many times before the camp officials learned the routine and whenever they missed Doug, they would go over to Shelda’s and drag him back to camp. I guess grandma Shelda felt sorry for Doug and to help him plan his escape suggested he run away to Aunt Gladys’s house so the camp couldn’t find him.

Briefly, about our lunch spot--Longaberger is a basketmaker in Frazeysburg. There are factory tours available and several gift shops as well as the restaurant. Our focus today was family history so we stopped by for lunch then went on our way. However, if we have a couple extra hours this week, we may go back to do a little holiday gift buying. It is my understanding that Longaberger baskets are somewhat of a collector’s item.

Charles and Shelda's home.

First house Gene lived in.

After lunch we drove into Newark and Doug did the old homestead tour for us. We saw many of the houses where relatives had once lived and the old Heisey Glass factory where several of the men in the family worked. It was pretty amazing to us that this large extended family lived and worked within a 2 or 3 mile radius of each other.

We got back to the Montana about 5 o’clock, pretty exhausted and overwhelmed with all we had seen, done, and heard today. We are off to a good start.