LUNCH IN THE CEMETERY by Elizabeth Jane Collins Wormuth, [email protected]

One year into my research of the Collins Family and many contacts with my father's cousins who are in their 80s I decided to take one of the cousins, Esther, with me to do some searching. There was little anyone knew about our Civil War grandfather -- only stories that were told through the years. I was determined to find as much as I could about him.

We had already found information such as dates and names in the family Bible, and my niece who works in Washington went to the National Archives and got his discharge papers, but I wanted to find a cemetery stone bearing his name. So, we packed a lunch and off we went. First, we went to the open house at the Harford Soldiers Orphan School in Harford, Pennsylvania. There we bought a book that included the names of five of the children of our Civil War grandfather who went there to school after the war. This find bolstered our confidence and we decided to stop at the cemetery where some of the family members said the Civil War grandfather was buried. We searched and just couldn't find a stone, at least one that was readable. Esther pointed out to me stones that were for the Civil War grandfather's daughter and her family, but we still couldn't find his.

We hadn't yet eaten our lunch so we decided to do so before we gave up to go home. There we were, sitting with the car doors open, laughing because of how we thought our having lunch in a cemetery must look to others, when a car pulled up in front of us. An elderly man with a cane got out and headed straight toward the grave of the grandfather's daughter. Esther got excited and said that must be a cousin.

We stumbled out of the car and ran towards him like a couple of crazy women. He must have been astonished. When he learned who we were he was filled with excitement himself. He had thought he was the only family member in the area and went on to tell us that he only visits the cemetery once or twice a year. He pointed out to us where the Civil War grandfather was buried, which was right where we were standing. He told us that he had all the Civil War letters our grandfather had written home to his wife and children and invited us to his home. A couple of weeks later we did go and he allowed me to take the letters with me to have copies made. Because they were hard for him to read, I decided to put them on cassette. Since then I have given them to several of our elderly family members to enjoy. We discovered much about our grandfather through his letters and have grown to love him and appreciate his loyalty to his family, to his country, and to his God.