Erie Cemetery

Last week I received a client request to visit the Erie Cemetery and photograph some grave markers. At the time, we were in the midst of an unusually balmy January (think global warming) and a stroll through one of my favorite cemeteries sounded like a great way to enjoy the outdoors. Next thing I knew, we had several straight days of lake effect snow and blizzard conditions, not to mention highs never getting above the teens for what seemed like forever. Suddenly an excursion to the cemetery lost its appeal.

Fortunately, my client appreciates the hazards of Northwest Pennsylvania winters, and is happy to wait until conditions are a bit more clement. In the meantime though, I’m going to suggest to him that, if he hasn’t all ready done so, he might have good luck checking the Erie Cemetery Association’s online burial database.

I use the database as a finding tool for burials at the three cemeteries which make up the association: the Erie Cemetery at 2116 Chestnut Street, Erie; Laurel Hill Cemetery at 4325 Love Road, Erie; and Wintergreen Gorge Cemetery at 2601 Norcross Road, Erie.

Finding the database takes a bit of work – it is not one of the navigational links at the top left of the home page. Scroll down, and you’ll see a “Search for your Family Genealogy” click here button, or scroll to the very bottom of the home page and follow the “search our genealogy database” link. Following either link brings you to the search page.

Last name is required, but all other search fields, such as dates of birth and death, and lot and section, are optional. You have the choice of filtering cemeteries or searching all of them at once.

A search of Nicholson at all cemeteries produced a long list. Here is the beginning of it:

Cemetery
Name
Lot No
Section
Location
Birth Date
Death Date
Wintergreen Cemetery
Nicholson Adam W.
678
10
gr 2
03/25/1913
05/30/1999
Erie Cemetery
Nicholson Alex
1
H
10/21/1878
Wintergreen Cemetery
Nicholson Andrew James
250
2
gr J
06/27/1895
02/08/1975
Erie Cemetery
Nicholson Anna
261
20
SE cor Hd E
03/19/1846
06/22/1923
Laurel Hill Cemetery
Nicholson Anna B.
98
16
gr 1
03/18/1917
10/21/1998
Erie Cemetery
Nicholson Catherine
1
H
02/27/1864
10/23/1885
Erie Cemetery
Nicholson ch of D. W.
Row R
B sgl
gr 21
03/30/1886
03/30/1886
Laurel Hill Cemetery
Nicholson Daisy D.
600
8
gr 1
09/21/1889
11/27/1981
Erie Cemetery
Nicholson Donald W.
261
20
NE cor Hd E
10/14/1844
03/19/1909
Erie Cemetery
Nicholson Dr. John
17
H
09/02/1830
08/01/1862
Erie Cemetery
Nicholson Eliza Jane
17
H
4.5′ W of NE cor Hd N
03/23/1894
Erie Cemetery
Nicholson Emma S.
16
B
10′ SW of NE cor of S 1/2, 4′ NW of edge of lot
07/23/1855
02/14/1933
Erie Cemetery
Nicholson George
1
H
Reint fr Presbyterian Grounds 3/25/1852
01/24/1834
Erie Cemetery
Nicholson George C. (or E.)
17
H
6′ E of SW cor Hd S
04/26/1834
09/25/1894
Erie Cemetery
Nicholson George Sheldon
1
H
03/29/1854
10/26/1856
Erie Cemetery
Nicholson Henry C.
1
H
Inner circle, E line, Hd E
11/25/1903
Erie Cemetery
Nicholson Jamie Lee
59
33
GR A
11/10/1969
04/11/2007
Erie Cemetery
Nicholson Jane
1
H
Reint fr Assoc Reform Grounds 6/22/1854
Erie Cemetery
Nicholson Jane
1
H
Reint fr Presbyterian Grounds 3/27/1852
12/07/1847
Erie Cemetery
Nicholson Jane
1
H
Inner crcl abt 4.5′ W of Alex’s stone, Hd SW
01/13/1899

The website also provides a map of lots and sections, which makes locating the graves easier, as these are large cemeteries. I’d also recommend checking with the cemetery office to see the original records.

The Lost Art of Letter Writing

Family papers and other unpublished manuscripts provide a kind of insight into the lives of our ancestors that cannot be obtained from vital records, court records, census records, and other official documents. Our ancestors’ letters, journals, clippings, and ephemera, were the stuff of their daily lives, and reading them can give us glimpses of exactly what those lives were like. They reveal their personalities, their cares and concerns. They offer explanations and a better understanding of our ancestors’ actions, and they add the color that is lacking in the black and white of their more official records.

If we are fortunate, we may discover that our ancestors’ papers are in the safekeeping of a relative, or are preserved in an archive. If not, we may still be lucky enough to find mention of them in the papers of their known associates. There are close to 1,000 letters in the Oren Reed Family Papers Addition, and while many represent the correspondence between Sophia Reed and her parents Otis Reed and Julia Nye, and her siblings, there are a substantial number of letters which Sophia received from her friends and distant relatives. If you consider that the letters people saved were the ones written to them, it makes sense that the letters contained in archive collections will frequently have more to do with friends and associates of the family.

No one can argue that the technological advances of the 20th century haven’t been wondrous, and certainly the Internet has brought the world at large into the comfort of our homes, but what of the newsy letter? Yes, paper is fragile, and handwriting can fade, but will our emails and social media activity be accessible to our descendants in another 200 years?

If not for the handwritten letter, how would we know of Julia Nye’s pride in graduating Edinboro Normal School in 1883, and her tormented decision, two years later, to turn down a teaching position to stay home and care for her father and younger brothers following the unexpected death of her mother? [1] How else would we learn of Otis Reed’s piety and his advice to daughter Sophia that playing cards are “the Devil’s greatest tools…”?[2] Could any other record of Sophia’s friend Ella Gochnauer’s marriage convey the bride’s appreciation for a wedding day that “… dawned with a leaden sky, but glints of sunshine soon appeared and when the eventful hour of nine–thirty had come, the sun was in its proper place….”? [3] How could official records possibly convey Sophia’s affection for her friends, or the importance of her lifelong correspondence with students she’d taught while living in New Jersey in the early 1900s?

Our ancestors lived lives just like ours. They had adventures, fears, hopes, and dreams; they found and lost love, felt great joy and knew terrible sorrow—the details of which would be lost to us were it not for their letters and journals. They were so much more than their birth, marriage, and death dates. Think for a moment how much of who you are will never be found in the official records you leave behind. Yes, today’s technology shrinks our world and encourages a communication which is virtually instantaneous, but will our digital history outlive us? Think of the thrill you’d feel upon discovering a collection of your great–great–grandparents’ courtship letters. What will your children’s grandchildren know of you?  Decades or centuries from now, what a treasure even one letter or journal entry written each year would be to those who come after us, eager to learn who we were. They needn’t be brilliant, just sincere. You needn’t tie them in satin ribbons, a simple cardboard box will do. They will help prevent the obscurity of forgotten souls, and will let us live on in the hearts of those we leave behind.

This article originally appeared in the November 2012 issue of Keystone Kuzzins, the quarterly bulletin of the Erie Society for Genealogical Research. The Oren Reed Family Papers Addition, and other collections like it, can be found at the Erie Historical Society’s Library & Archives, Erie, Pennsylvania.

[1] Viola Nye Nowell, handwritten letter to her sister Julia Nye, 1885; Oren Reed Family Papers Addition, box 2, ff 19.

[2] Otis Reed, handwritten letter to his daughter Sophia Reed, 1911; Oren Reed Family Papers Addition, box 7, ff 101.

[3] Ella Gochnauer McAllister, handwritten letter to Sophia Reed, 1912; Oren Reed Family Papers Addition, box 4, ff 57.