IT'S BEEN FOUND! (October 2019)
(NOTE: This installment of Mary’s Messages was written by Mary’s nephew Jerry Larkin, who has been continuing to help her try to find answers to some of the open questions associated with her genealogy work. After just recently celebrating her 100th birthday, Mary is still strongly motivated to solve some of those family mysteries. Upon learning the new information detailed below, Mary asked Jerry to write a summary of their new findings “for the record.”)
Those of you that have followed my Aunt Mary’s writings over the years may remember that she’s been trying to solve the mystery involving the exact location of Anna Elisabeth Schuenemann’s grave, as well as that of Anna’s 4-year-old grandson Johann Gerhard, at St. John’s Cemetery in Johnsburg, Il. Cemetery records show that both were buried there in the 1860s, though neither is identified by name on any historical or current plot maps in the cemetery office. (For background, please see the articles in the Volume III Number 3 (July 1998) newsletter, the Volume V Number 5 (November 2000) newsletter, the Volume XIV Number 3 (March 2013) newsletter, the December 2015 Mary’s Message, and the August 2016 Mary’s Message.)
Anna Elisabeth Schuenemann, mother of Johann Heinrich (John) Schuenemann, accompanied him to the United States and also lived with him in Johnsburg. The headstones of Johann Heinrich and his wife Maria Catherine are prominent markers situated in the center of a rather large and otherwise barren plot in the cemetery, so it was always assumed that Anna’s and young Johann Gerhard’s graves must be on the same large plot, but perhaps with flat markers covered over by grass. Permission was obtained in 1998 (by my sister Janet Smith, working with Mary then) to probe the ground in the area around the existing markers to see if the missing markers could be located beneath the surface of the large plot. Nothing was done for many years, but after Mary again wrote about it in late 2015, I volunteered to finally do the probing of the plot in search of potentially buried markers. After extensive probing with the help of the cemetery custodian, no additional markers were found, and we were resigned to accept the fact that we’d done all we could to locate them, but to no avail. We decided to give up the search and let them rest in peace, wherever in the cemetery they actually were!
Then came a surprise earlier this year. A friend of Mary’s in McHenry, IL who studies the history of McHenry County and knew of her genealogy work on the Schuenemanns of Johnsburg, called her and told her that while visiting St. John’s Cemetery recently, he noticed a very old white limestone marker loosely leaning against a fence behind the church, with the bottom portion of the stone broken off. He also said that he could clearly read the name on the marker, and it was Anna’s long-lost marker! My Aunt Mary called me with this news, and we immediately thought of more questions. Where was it found? Who found it? How did it come to be leaning against the fence?
I offered to take her to the cemetery to see the marker in person and to ask these questions in the cemetery office. We met with the Parish Secretary, who had no answers, but told us she’d “try to find out” and get back to us. After several follow-up emails, we still haven’t received definitive answers. And we still didn’t know the original plot location in the cemetery for where the stone belonged!
Again, my Aunt Mary’s McHenry friend came to the rescue. He steered us to a book published in 1997 by the McHenry County Illinois Genealogical Society titled “McHenry County Illinois Cemeteries, Volume III – Northeast Townships,” which contained the Society’s own plot maps and grave locations for St. John’s Cemetery. These records show the location of Anna’s grave in the first row of the cemetery along the east side of the church, now an empty space easily found between the named markers on either side of it that are identified in that book. So, our assumption that she’d be buried in the same plot as her son was wrong. She occupied a spot apart from her son, which Mary’s friend told us was not uncommon at the time. Family members were not always buried nearby each other in that era. The book also listed 4-year-old Johann Gerhard’s location in the cemetery as “unknown,” so I guess that will have to remain a mystery.
I shared this new information about Anna’s plot location with the cemetery office, who then agreed to probe this empty spot for the broken base of the marker. Voila! There it was! Now knowing with certainty the proper location of the plot, I contacted my three cousins (Mary’s children) and we jointly decided to all pitch in and have the marker restored to its original location and upright position, not only as a gift for Mary, but also as a show of respect for our 3rd great-grandmother.
We still don’t have the answers regarding the marker’s finding or where it has been “hiding” since it broke off from its base, but I suspect it was stored away somewhere out of the weather, since the name and date are still very readable, and the white color is more vibrant than other similar limestone markers in the cemetery from that era.
Thinking later about the sudden and unexplained appearance of the marker, I now believe that perhaps my sister Janet (Smith) had something to do with its emergence. Ever since Janet passed away in 2017, her husband and her siblings (my four sisters and me) insist that she has periodically given us “signs” from beyond. I think she placed the marker against the fence for us to find, helping to complete the search that she herself began over 20 years ago with my Aunt Mary. Thank you, Janet, for finally solving this mystery for us!
Jerry Larkin
Those of you that have followed my Aunt Mary’s writings over the years may remember that she’s been trying to solve the mystery involving the exact location of Anna Elisabeth Schuenemann’s grave, as well as that of Anna’s 4-year-old grandson Johann Gerhard, at St. John’s Cemetery in Johnsburg, Il. Cemetery records show that both were buried there in the 1860s, though neither is identified by name on any historical or current plot maps in the cemetery office. (For background, please see the articles in the Volume III Number 3 (July 1998) newsletter, the Volume V Number 5 (November 2000) newsletter, the Volume XIV Number 3 (March 2013) newsletter, the December 2015 Mary’s Message, and the August 2016 Mary’s Message.)
Anna Elisabeth Schuenemann, mother of Johann Heinrich (John) Schuenemann, accompanied him to the United States and also lived with him in Johnsburg. The headstones of Johann Heinrich and his wife Maria Catherine are prominent markers situated in the center of a rather large and otherwise barren plot in the cemetery, so it was always assumed that Anna’s and young Johann Gerhard’s graves must be on the same large plot, but perhaps with flat markers covered over by grass. Permission was obtained in 1998 (by my sister Janet Smith, working with Mary then) to probe the ground in the area around the existing markers to see if the missing markers could be located beneath the surface of the large plot. Nothing was done for many years, but after Mary again wrote about it in late 2015, I volunteered to finally do the probing of the plot in search of potentially buried markers. After extensive probing with the help of the cemetery custodian, no additional markers were found, and we were resigned to accept the fact that we’d done all we could to locate them, but to no avail. We decided to give up the search and let them rest in peace, wherever in the cemetery they actually were!
Then came a surprise earlier this year. A friend of Mary’s in McHenry, IL who studies the history of McHenry County and knew of her genealogy work on the Schuenemanns of Johnsburg, called her and told her that while visiting St. John’s Cemetery recently, he noticed a very old white limestone marker loosely leaning against a fence behind the church, with the bottom portion of the stone broken off. He also said that he could clearly read the name on the marker, and it was Anna’s long-lost marker! My Aunt Mary called me with this news, and we immediately thought of more questions. Where was it found? Who found it? How did it come to be leaning against the fence?
I offered to take her to the cemetery to see the marker in person and to ask these questions in the cemetery office. We met with the Parish Secretary, who had no answers, but told us she’d “try to find out” and get back to us. After several follow-up emails, we still haven’t received definitive answers. And we still didn’t know the original plot location in the cemetery for where the stone belonged!
Again, my Aunt Mary’s McHenry friend came to the rescue. He steered us to a book published in 1997 by the McHenry County Illinois Genealogical Society titled “McHenry County Illinois Cemeteries, Volume III – Northeast Townships,” which contained the Society’s own plot maps and grave locations for St. John’s Cemetery. These records show the location of Anna’s grave in the first row of the cemetery along the east side of the church, now an empty space easily found between the named markers on either side of it that are identified in that book. So, our assumption that she’d be buried in the same plot as her son was wrong. She occupied a spot apart from her son, which Mary’s friend told us was not uncommon at the time. Family members were not always buried nearby each other in that era. The book also listed 4-year-old Johann Gerhard’s location in the cemetery as “unknown,” so I guess that will have to remain a mystery.
I shared this new information about Anna’s plot location with the cemetery office, who then agreed to probe this empty spot for the broken base of the marker. Voila! There it was! Now knowing with certainty the proper location of the plot, I contacted my three cousins (Mary’s children) and we jointly decided to all pitch in and have the marker restored to its original location and upright position, not only as a gift for Mary, but also as a show of respect for our 3rd great-grandmother.
We still don’t have the answers regarding the marker’s finding or where it has been “hiding” since it broke off from its base, but I suspect it was stored away somewhere out of the weather, since the name and date are still very readable, and the white color is more vibrant than other similar limestone markers in the cemetery from that era.
Thinking later about the sudden and unexplained appearance of the marker, I now believe that perhaps my sister Janet (Smith) had something to do with its emergence. Ever since Janet passed away in 2017, her husband and her siblings (my four sisters and me) insist that she has periodically given us “signs” from beyond. I think she placed the marker against the fence for us to find, helping to complete the search that she herself began over 20 years ago with my Aunt Mary. Thank you, Janet, for finally solving this mystery for us!
Jerry Larkin