Digging up Granddad

Today, I examine an image I happened across yesterday. When I was writing Finding Home, I remember my mom telling me that she and dad got help with the down payment for the house where I grew up. I couldn’t remember if it was her parents, or if she specifically said her mom. I knew that my grandfather died before I was born, but I couldn’t remember when exactly, and if maybe he was still alive when they looked at the house.

I searched the internets for an old obituary. When I came up empty-handed, I referred to handy-dandy “Find-a-grave.” I wasn’t sure if I’d find anything. My folks, being Depression-era kids, have always been notoriously cheap and even things like gravestones were a frivolity. They only went through the funeral trappings of embalming, casket and vault because they were devoutly Catholic. Funny, because Mom and Dad both ended up being cremated. That’s a story for another time.

They were also not ones to visit graves. In all my time, they never once mentioned the wish to visit their dearly departed – even my grandfather to whom my mom was very close. I only remember my grandma’s funeral. It was very cold and they did the “graveside” ceremony in a mausoleum. We never returned, and I never saw her final resting place.

It didn’t take long. Within a couple minutes I hit paydirt.

What took me aback was the stone of my long-gone uncle. I had heard the story, but never thought about the fact that a marker existed to commemorate his short life.

Jim was four when he died. His favorite thing was fire, so his favorite “toy” was any random book of matches. My grandparents did everything to hide them from him, keeping them out of sight, on a high shelf. The boy was clever though (much like his dad), figured it out and found a stepladder. At some point during his “playtime”, he set his clothes alight, panicked and started running through the house, fanning the angry flames further.

My mom remembers her dad tackling the screaming child with a blanket, her frantic, wide-eyed mother and a heap of burnt clothing with embers still glowing. By today’s standards, the injuries, while serious, would not be egregious. Second and third degree burns on his arm and chest, but this was 1930. It didn’t help that my grandmother applied butter as a salve to his injuries in hopes that it would soothe him on his way to the hospital. The poor kid felt like toast in more ways that one.

He passed from pneumonia three weeks later. My mom said grandma was never the same. She describes her condition as what I can only assume was a mental breakdown. She spent nearly a year in her chair, staring into space, only getting up to attend to her duties as a mother of two small children – a zombie.

The mystery grave

The body of my forever young uncle (space 2) rests to the right of my grandfather, John Chrysostom Comer (space 3). My grandmother’s remains are unmarked in space 4, and here’s where it gets kind of strange. There is another unmarked grave; John Chrysostom Comer in space 5. It shows the same birthday as my grandfather, but interment in 1956. I’m 100% sure that my grandfather didn’t have a sibling that bore the same name. Irish families are weird, but they aren’t that weird.

So who is this mystery man? My next stop is to check cemetery records. My best guess is that it is one of his brothers. I’m also going to look into getting a headstone for my grandmother. I remember her babysitting me over the summer when I was young. She was a nice, albeit, a worrier, and I was kind of a pill. I think this would be a nice way of honoring her.