Second Stop, part 1: St. John Cemetery, Middle Village Queens - William and Agnes Sauer

The second cemetery Cousin Pete and I visited in our marathon of cemetery visits on Saturday, April 24, 2021, was St. John Cemetery on Metropolitan Ave. in Middle Village, Queens, NY. What a truly beautiful and well maintained cemetery. 

This is the location of the graves of more than a few of my Grandma Earle's people and thus ancestors Peter and I share. Pete and I are second cousins. My Grandma Earle and his grandma were sisters.

My plan was to visit the burial locations of these 5 individuals:

1. Our great-great grandfather on Grandma Earle's mother's side; William Sauer (11 February 1870 - 23 December 1932) Section 24, Row K, Grave 106

2. Our great-great grandmother, William's wife; Agnes Gray-Sauer (27 October 1871 - 30 December 1941) who is buried with her husband in Section 24, Row K, Grave 106. 

3. Our great-great grandmother on Grandma Earle's father's side; Annette "Anne" Hinch-Henry (22 February 1868 - 2 March 1952) Section 18, Row O, Grave 78

4. Our 3rd great grandmother, Anne's mother-in-law; Mary Carrillion-Henry (October 1855 - 8 January 1907) Section 13, Row O, Grave 7

5. Our 3rd great grandfather, Mary's husband; Victor Henry (March 1838 - 9 November 1896) Section 16, Row A, Grave 403

In addition to these 5, several of Peter's mother's relatives are buried in St. John Cemetery and so we also ventured to find some of his family graves. 

We got to St. John at about 11:20 and left a little after 1 p.m. It was certainly the longest of our stays inside any one cemetery that day. We probably also got our most steps in there wandering about trying to find the grave numbers etched into the bottom right corners of headstones.

Because we visited so many graves in St. John, I am going to blog about one gravesite at a time. The first of which is the grave of our great-great grandparents, William Sauer (11 February 1870 - 23 December 1932) and Agnes Gray-Sauer (27 October 1871 - 30 December 1941) in Section 24, Row K, Grave 106. 

You might wonder why we didn't start at the lowest numbered section. Well, the way the numbering of sections are laid out, 24 is actually closest to the entrance we came through. This is an enormous Catholic Cemetery; nearly 190 acres. You need a map. However, we didn't need to go to the office. Signs people! Signs.

You can kind of see Peter and I reflected in the map sign. We came in through the gate between sections 1 and 2. It took some navigating but we found William and Agnes in section 24 in Row K which runs perpendicular to the red road way parallel to Woodhaven Blvd. Their headstone faces towards Furmanville Ave. And yes! They have a headstone.

The stone on the right is for our great-great grandparents as well as their daughter, also named Agnes. The stone on the left is for their son, also named William. Not real creative with their name choices. You can see in the background the Christ the Redeemer Mausoleum which helps to give one a sense of the location within the cemetery

William Sauer the younger was the father of our grandmothers' cousin who we lovingly called "Uncle Billy." I just recently learned Uncle Billy passed away last year on January 16, 2020 at the age of 95. His father had a rather short life though. He died of pneumonia at the age of 25.

Great-great grandpa William Sauer was an ambulance driver back when the ambulance was a wooden wagon. Below is a photo of William and his horse evidently hitched to a wagon of some sort.

My grandma also talked about their monkey. Yes, great-great grandpa had a monkey. One of her earliest memories was of her grandfather William holding her and feeding buttered crackers to the monkey who would lick off the butter and throw the crackers on the ground. I don't know who the people are in the photo below but I know that is the monkey.

I also have a beautiful image of my great great grandmother, Agnes Gray-Sauer, in a family group photo. That is Agnes right in the middle. In front of her are 3 of her 5 children. The child standing on the left is William Sauer (1901-1926) and the young girl is my great grandmother, Anna Marie Sauer-Henry (1896-1986). The little boy in the middle is Joseph Sauer (1902-1968). 

The woman on the left holding the baby is Margaret Gray-Fitzpatrick (1878-1956). She is holing her son, Raymond Fitzpatrick (1906-1977). The woman in the back on the left is Agnes & Margaret's sister, Mary "Mamie" Gray (1869-1929). The woman on the right in the back not holding a child is Elizabeth "Eliza" Gray (1879-1970). I am not sure who the woman on the far right is, the one holding the sleeping baby. I suspect the baby might be Agnes's 4th child, Cecilia Sauer (14 July 1906 - 9 August 1907) which provides a pretty narrow window of time in which this photo was taken; sometime during Cecilia's lifetime. Cecelia was buried in Most Holy Trinity Cemetery which was part of my cemetery marathon. I'll write about that visit soon.

Counting Them Visited: Thomas Gray (abt. 1844 - 27 March 1899) & Anna Hughes-Gray (Nov 1843 - 17 April 1904)

In my first wave of attempting to locate gravesites I had yet to visit, I took a cursory glance at my records on Ancestry. I store the bulk of my printed documentation in my office which is inaccessible to me right now due to the COVID pandemic. Yes, I keep my print records at work because I used to spend the bulk of my time there and I just didn't have the shelf space for the multiple large binders. So I just looked at what I had on Ancestry for my 3rd great grandparents, Thomas Gray and Anna Hughes-Gray - - no plot location. 

I did a few searches and still I could not come up with a plot location. So I sent an email to Aunt Ro. Aunt Ro is really my father's cousin but we grew up calling his cousins aunt & uncle out of respect. That can make for confusion when you grow up and try to research people who were called "aunt" and "uncle" but weren't really that relation but I digress.

Aunt Ro has been doing genealogy research my whole life and this is our shared line so I thought for sure she would have plot locations for this couple. 

She did! 

And so did I. Yeah, somehow I had overlooked that I had acquired their plot locations in Calvary Cemetery some years ago when I was researching Anna's brother, Edward Hughes. 

I wrote multiple big long blog about the circumstances surrounding his murder: Edward Hughes Murdered??? and Revisiting Edward Hughes Edward is interred with his sister Anna and her husband Thomas along with several other family members. I have even previously written about my experience of trying to find Edward's plot in Calvary Cemetery: Headstone Hunting I really did not recall having visited Anna & Thomas there though. I think that is  because, like so many of my relatives, they do not have a headstone.

In Calvary Cemetery, cemetery 1, section 3, graves 1-4 there are 4 small square tiles that are flush with the ground. They mark the perimeter of graves 1-4. And that is it! No marking of the corner stones, no names, no dates, you can hardly even see them. I never even bother to photograph them. That is, however, the resting place of at least 10 of my relatives:

1. Terrence Hughes, my 4th great-grandfather (born about March 1800 - died 22 September 1873)
2. Ellen Sweeney-Hughes, my 4th great-grandmother (born about October 1802 - died 12 March 1884) 
3. Edward Hughes, their son (born about 1849 - died 24 March 1874)
4. Patrick Henry Hughes, another son and purchaser of the plot (born about 1844 - died 25 June 1883)
5. Mary Gray, also known as Mamie, daughter of Anna Hughes-Gray and Thomas Gray (born 22 July 1869 - 24 May 1929)
6. Margaret Gray-Fitzpatrick, another daughter of Anna Hughes-Gray and Thomas Gray (born 25 January 1875 - died 20 June 1968)
7. Michael Fitzpatrick,  Margaret's husband (born about 1878 - died 25 January 1956)    
8. Elizabeth V. Gray,  another daughter of Anna Hughes-Gray and Thomas Gray (born 9 July 1875 - died 2 June 1970)

AND my 3rd great grandparents Anna Hughes-Gray and Thomas Gray.

• Anna Hughes-Gray, my 3rd great-grandmother who sometimes appears as Anna M., Mary Ann, or Mary A. (born about November 1843 - died 17 April 1904)
• Thomas Gray, my 3rd great-grandfather (born about 1844 - died 27 March 1899)

Interestingly, I have Anna's memorial card and I've written about that in the past too: Speaking of Memorial Cards...

The curious thing is that I was just at Calvary Cemetery with Aunt Ro's brother, Uncle Charlie, his daughter Cousin Kelly, and granddaughter Meri looking for the burial location of their great-great grandfather on their maternal line; not our shared ancestry. And guess where their great-great grandpa, Thomas J. Moore, is buried. Cavalry Cemetery, Cemetery 1, Sec 3. Different row and grave but in the same section as the Hughes-Grays. It is a small, small world and a really big freakin' section of an enormous cemetery.

Headstone Hunting

After a successful visit to the New York City Municipal Archives and uncovering my 4th great-grandmother's maiden name, I thought I'd try my hand at finding her burial location. I know Ellen Sweeney-Hughes is buried with her husband, Terrence Hughes, and several other family members at Calvary Cemetery. 

Calvary, for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, is the largest cemetery in New York City. It is the final resting place for over 3 million New Yorkers. It is divided into 4 sections, the oldest being "Old Calvary" which was opened in 1848 and is the cemetery where my Hughes relatives are interred.

Now, if you have read some of my posts you may have heard me rant about how rare it is to find a relative with a headstone. I come from a poor, working-class stock. Headstones are expensive. And let's just face the facts, we're either broke or cheap. Cheap out of necessity - - but nonetheless cheap.

This morning I traveled to Calvary with hope in my heart though. With my head held high I drove into the pack cemetery with camera in pocket. 

The Hughes Family is buried in Section 3, Range 1, Plot A, Graves 1 through 4.

Now what does that tell you? That sounds to me as if they are going to be right up front in Section 3. They might very well be the front absolute first spot in a corner of Section 3.

This quality is also quite common among my relatives' plot locations; they are often right near the curb. Not only are we poor, I guess we know we're lazy...or maybe just super tired from all that working to maintain poor. ("Give us your tired, your poor"...no wonder my people came to America). Ain't no one gonna come visit your grave if we have to trample all over the cemetery to find you. However, that is exactly what I did. 

Despite being pretty sure the plot would be in the first, foremost corner of the section I walked up and down those ranges. I also drove around and around that section trying to read the few headstones which had cemetery location numbers chiseled into them. 

Well guess what, people. I did not find a headstone for my Hughes family. Surprise, surprise, surprise. The very corner of Section 3 has 4 small square tiles that are flush with the ground; that mark the perimeter of Graves 1-4. And that is it! No marking of the corner stones, no names, no dates, you can hardly even see them. I didn't even bother to photograph them.

According to my Cousin Roseann and some of my own substantiating research we know that corner to be the resting place of:

1. Terrence Hughes, my 4th great-grandfather on my father's most maternal line; died 22 September 1873.
2. Ellen Sweeney-Hughes, my 4th great-grandmother, bearer of my father's mitochondrial DNA who died 12 March 1884 at the age of 81. 
3. Edward Hughes, their son who died 24 March 1874 at the age of 25.
4. Patrick Henry Hughes, another son and purchaser of the plot who died 25 June 1883 at the age of 40.
5. Anna Hughes-Gray, my 3rd great-grandmother who sometimes appears as Anna M., Mary Ann, or Mary A., died 17 April 1904.
6. Thomas Gray, my 3rd great-grandfather, who died at the age of 55 on 30 March 1899.
7. Mary Gray, also known as Mamie was a daughter of Anna and Thomas Gray. She died 24 May 1929 at the age of 55.
8. Margaret Gray-Fitzpatrick, another daughter of Anna and Thomas Gray who died 24 June 1968 at the age of 91 .
9. Michael Fitzpatrick,  Margaret's husband, died 25 Jan 1956 at the age of  81.    
10. Elizabeth V. Gray,  another daughter of Anna and Thomas Gray, who died 2 June 1970 at the age of 90.