Tombstone Tuesday ~ More from Watt Cemetery

[William Sisler born Jan 31, 1832 died June 19, 1888]

This is not one of my relatives, it's another stone in Watt Cemetery which I am (slowly) mapping. Since my first post about the cemetery, I've learned just a little bit more. One day when I was there, a lady walking her dogs stopped to talk to me. She asked if I was a relative of the people buried there. I told her no, that I was just taking pictures. She told me that until recently the family used to come out every year to clean up the cemetery. [The cemetery is now in a subdivision and this lady lives next to it.] She said they used to have a lot of people there working - almost like a reunion! She didn't know why they stopped coming out, but they haven't been there for several years.

If we would get some nicer weather, I'd like to go back and get the rest of the pictures.

Watt Cemetery ~ Madison Co, IL

I recently received several photo requests for this cemetery. I saw the picture on Find-A-Grave and it looked like a nice old cemetery on a grass hill ~ perfect for a Saturday afternoon stroll. My Dad was at my house waiting on my Mom to come back from a quilt store and I decided that he really wanted to go cemetery visiting with me. Besides, he is always good at finding those elusive stones for me! When we got there I was shocked to see the state of the place. It was hugely overgrown as you can see by this shot from the road.

The thing that interested me was that it seems like this is the back of the cemetery even though this is now the only road near it. All the markers are facing away from the road. It's very old - with a number of the markers indicating birth dates in the late 1700's. Of course there are many, many totally illegible stones, but amazingly I was able to find and photograph 3 out of the 5 requested. Well, OK, my DAD found them - I photographed them! But anyway, I've got a good start on resolution #4. Of course I also took other photos besides the ones that had been requested and I'd like to come back when the weather is nicer and try to get all the legible ones.

Here are two of the stones, which we found near the back (in terms of the picture and the road) after traipsing through all the overgrown middle part. The names are James WATT b. June 24, 1792 d. Dec 6, 1879 and Diana, wife of James (maiden name STICE according to the memorial on Find-A-Grave) b. July 14, 1792, d. Jul 25, 1866.

I haven't been able to find much information about the cemetery yet, but will work on that for another day.