Today was a FANTASTIC day, for I finally found, via internet search, the parents of Leonard Kult Sr., my great-great-grandfather! I have been looking so long for him! And just when I was feeling like researching my family history was getting a bit dry and boring, out pops Leonard’s folks. HOW EXCITING! And how serendipitous!

 

I found his ancestors by searching the google books for his wife, and my g-g-grandma, “Eva Kobus“. She turned up in a German book named Heimatbuch Bubsheim (which means “book of Bubsheim’s history and geography”).

 

I can not tell you just how excited and thrilled I was when I saw Eva Kobus mentioned next to “Leonhard Kuolt”. I had been hoping that’s how his name was spelled, for there’s a christening record for a “Leonhard Kuolt” on the FHL website, which I had seen before, but couldn’t quite prove that Leonard Kult and Leonhard Kuolt was the same person. But when the book listed Leonhard’s parents as Ignaz Kuolt and Genevefa Staller, I knew I had a goldmine here, for that’s the same names as on the christening record in the FHL website. They came from Bubsheim, a small village (currently of only about 1000 people), which is located in the Black Forest of Wuerttemberg, Germany. More research is inevitable here… the possibilities are boundless.

 

Ah…, the little things it takes in life to make my day. I literally danced with joy in my kitchen after finding this hidden treasure!

 

Today I went to the Wisconsin Historical Society Library again. I had 14 pages worth of sources to look for, and only found one good one… which wasn’t even on my list! It was the Washington County Illinois 1979 History book. I found several family members in this book, some of which were submitted by Evelyn (Decker) Piotrowski and Betty (Erbe) Arend.

 

I also figured out my Genealogical anniversary — when I actually got bit by the Genealogy Bug. It was on Friday, March 18, 2005, when I had to go through Aunt Ruthie’s and Granny’s papers to look for a car title. While doing that, I found all sorts of interesting pictures of Granny mostly, and death certificates, etc. That is what started it all! So I made a journal entry for 3-18-2005

 

Who knew that I would actually get obsessed with this stuff! I’ve been heavily involved in family research for over 2 1/2 years now, and I still feel like I’ve just scratched the surface. I really want to become certified, but that’s going to take me quite a while yet.

Since Calvary Cemetery doesn’t open til 8:30, I got to sleep in a little later. I wrote my memoirs of this trip… oh, now I’m late, it’s 8:07am. I better git on the road. Cavalry, here I come! (Watch out!)

 

Calvary Cemetery is the largest Catholic cemetery I’ve ever seen. It has very elaborate tombstones of what must’ve been very rich catholic families. Some gravestones were  statues which stood several stories high. The picture above is a plot where several catholic priests are buried. There were many sections like this one which are dedicated to congregations of churches as well.

 

I did find John & Cecelia Kult’s gravestone (but only with the help of the office)! The picture below shows their gravestone near the middle of the picture (it’s the older whitewashed one with purple flowers at the base of their stone). The graves of their children are not marked, but according to office records, they’re buried in the blank spots in front of the Kult gravestone. By the way, the gravestone of the bust of a man in front of the photo is NOT their’s… it’s just one of the many unique stones that happened to be in the vicinity of John and Cecelia’s, and I included it as a point of reference.

 

 

This was quite a pleasant cemetery to cruise; which I drove through the majority of it, and it took me at least an hour to do so — it’s that huge! It was well worth the overnight stay in St. Louis!

 

I got up early and was out on the road by 6:30am. I went to Horse Prairie Cemetery first to get pics of gravestones of Great-great-great-grandma Catherine (Pierce) Coates’ parents and siblings. I found them! I had to clean off Ozias Coates’ gravestone from all of the bird poo… it was a mess! Those birdies really like that tombstone, probably because it’s one of the tallest ones in the cemetery. The cows (and a bull/steer too) were in a field just across the road from the cemetery, and they were mooing at me while I was taking pics. I mooed back at them. Then a really fit brown horse came galloping up to the fence to see what I was up to. I said “howdie horsie”, and she shook her head at me up-and-down, snorted, and then took off to other parts of their green pasture.

 

After Horse Prairie (hey, now I know why they called it “Horse Prairie”!), I traveled some one-lane country roads to Mt. Zion Cemetery for more pics. I visited and took pics of all relatives, and left red flowers with a gold angel for Grandma Kult. I then headed to Radom Cemetery for more pics.

 

While I was at Radom Cemetery, I had a “serendipitous” moment. I was looking for the gravestone of great-great-grandma Eva Kobus. I knew she was about 5-6 rows away from great-great-grandma Sophie Shultz, but I was looking in the wrong direction… I was looking east of Sophia instead of west (silly me!). Anyway, while I was looking for Eva, I just happened upon Sophie’s mother, my great-great-great-grandmother, Marianna Schultz’s gravestone (lucky me!)! I wasn’t even looking for her at that moment, but she just kinda jumped up and grabbed my attention somehow. Grandma Marianna was actually the whole reason why I wanted to go to Radom, and she was the first one I found! Now that’s divine intervention!

 

 

After Radom, I decided to go to Ashley Cemetery and get pics of great-grandpa Leonard Kult Jr. and his bro, Charles, and his daughter, Vandy Erbe, all with “Angel” of course.

 

I then made a quick stop at Beacoup Cemetery to see Uncle Bill Beacoup, then headed for St. Ann’s to see Grandpa Kult. I left him some red flowers too, with gold praying hands.

 

I then went to see where the church was in Nashville where the Decker-Kult family reunion will be - found it. It’s quite a big church!

 

I then headed for the Washington Co. Courthouse - I found absolutely no records there for what I was looking for. Argh!

 

I then went to the dimestore, of course… I bought more flowers for graves. They also had a ton of little statues like “Angel”!! I almost bought one… but they were $10. Maybe I will when I come back for the Family Reunion.

 

I then headed for Belleville Public Library, where the records of Radom’s St. Michael’s church are kept on microfilm. Roll #127… what a find! I found a LOT of records on Kult, Kucharski, Piotrowski and Schultz surnames. All records are written in Latin, however, including the names, so it’s a little difficult to find them. There are indexes, but they aren’t complete… I wish I could just copy the whole roll!

 

I then tried going to Cavalry Cemetery in St. Louis… stupid me, I ended up going thru downtown St. Louis at 5pm on a Friday nite. It wasn’t as bad as Chicago by any means, but it was still bumper-to-bumper for about 30 minutes. Anyway, when I got to Cavalry, it was closed!! Apparently, they close the gates at 5pm. Argh!!

 

That meant I had to stay the nite. So I went back to Fairfield Heights and stayed at a Best Western/Camelot Inn. Luckily, there was a TGIFriday’s across the street, so I downed a pineapple & Malibu (oh, that was good!) and grabbed a Pecan Chix salad to go. My favorite!

 

I started out from home at 1:50pm. I made it all the way to Dix, Illinois without making any stops… I arrived at 6:45pm. I decided to stop at Pleasant Hill Cemetery to take a picture of William and Colleen Lawhorn’s gravestone with “Angel”, my new “trademark” of taking gravestone pics. I’m going to include her somewhere in the picture for every gravestone pic I take from now on. And yeah, I retaking some of the gravestone pics now so I include her in it.

 

I then stopped for the night in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, and stayed at the Hampton Inn. It was very enjoyable stay, the bed was very comfy. However, I didn’t get too much of a good sleep… I kept waking up every couple of hours. Oh well. The next few days should be fun!

 

I went to McCormick’s Creek State Park, and took a ton of photos of a nice little waterfall.

I stayed until 9am, which was when the Nature Center opened. The gals in the office had some genealogy info on the John McCormick which founded the state park. Unfortunately, he was a different John McCormick than the one who married Aunt Bethia Case. Oh well… it was a nice state park anyway!

I then went to the Plainfield Public Library, where I found a whole folder full of information on John & Bethia (Case) McCormick’s family. [Unfortunately, I later found out that I hadn’t copied the MOST important part of the Bethia story…. the ending!! Argh! Now I have to go back there and see if there is more of the story.]

I then headed downtown Indianapolis to go to White River State Park to see the memorial rock were John McCormick built the first cabin in Indianapolis. What a place! In the picture below, you can see that McCormick’s Rock is behind the black railing at the top of the waterfall. Can you imagine what John and Bethia must think of Indianapolis now if they were alive today? I’m sure they’d be blown away. It’s a very nice, clean, and well-maintained park. I’m sure they would’ve never thought the place where they first built their cabin would look like this 187 years later! The lawn is nicely kept, there’s walkways all over, and a canal where it ends at this waterfall. People were having picnics or just sunning themselves on the lawn, or taking their dogs for walks, or taking a ride in the unique cycles like in the picture below. Those type of bikes were everywhere — they’re called “Surreys” — they can be rented from a kiosk between the Indiana State Museum and the NCAA Hall of Champions. They’re very unique, and a cool way to tour the park!

 

 

I needed a weekend away from the squalor of the “real world”, so I decided to take a trip to look for Trimble Cemetery, in Orange County, Indiana. This little weekend trip turned out to be a genealogical adventure of a lifetime!

 

I drove straight to Trimble Cemetery in Lost River. I started taking pictures of all the tombstones to document on FindaGrave.com, but it quickly became a chore. The grass was wet, and my feet were soon soaked.

 

Luckily, I found the tombstones I was looking for by the fourth or fifth row. I found William & Rebecca Case, and Uriah & Elvina Case. After I shot photos of their tombstones, I decided to end the photo shoot. And I’m glad I did - I had a lot more discovering to do!

 

 

I then decided to go to the Wingate Inn in Plainfield, IN, where I had stayed before. I like Wingate Inns - it’s my favorite hotel chain. After getting a room, it was still pretty early, so I decided to go out to the Spring Hill Cemetery near Centerburg, only about 7 miles away from the hotel. Samuel and Elizabeth Case are supposed to be buried in Spring Hill Cemetery, so I thought I’d get a photo of their headstones. Unfortunately, I didn’t find them, but I did find Sam’s brother’s stone - for James and Patsy McCormick. That was okay - I got to see a bird I’ve never seen before, an Eastern Bluebird, which was in the cemetery:

 

When I returned to the hotel, I wanted to write down the details of John & Bethia (Case) McCormick, to see if I could find them, and I noticed that I had a note in my database that they were the first settlers and founders of Indianapolis, Indiana. So I got on-line and did some investigation on John & Bethia, and found a ton of info on the Plainfield Public Library website. I also found information on a McCormick’s Creek State Park, which was founded by a John McCormick (although I found out later that it was a different John McCormick who lived during the same time period). The state park is about an hour south of the hotel… so I decided to get up early in the morning, go see the McCormick State Park, do some research at the Plainfield Public Library, and then go to White River State Park in Indianapolis to see the Memorial Rock of John McCormick, the first white settler in the present area of Indianapolis, Indiana. WHAT A FIND, EH?

 

For more info as to how John and Bethia (Case) McCormick were instrumental in founding the capital of Indianapolis, Indiana, click here to see another article I wrote about them.