30 March 2010

Tombstone Tuesday--Gowell-Huber Cemetery

Gowell Huber is a small cemetery in West central Newaygo county. The transcript of graves that we have in the local history room here only lists 7 stones--one of which simply sounds like a family marker, rather than an individual.
So above you see probably almost half of the cemetery--5 stones! Once again, even here there are bordered plots. Don't want anyone crowding in on you, ya know.
Here is another view of the cemetery. You can see the "wide open spaces" here. I also love the fact that of the very few pictures we have of this cemetery, one is a photoshopped copy of this same picture, minus the power tower and silo, just above the horizon on either side.

Here is a lone stone, near some bushes. The interesting thing I found out about this stone was the top of it. If you look closely, it appears to be a small figure. I think that it is a small carving of a lamb. Of course I had to look at a blown up version to tell that, but you once you know its there, you can make out the shape of something on the stone.
Here is the stone of Sylvester Gowell. He died October 20, 1898 at the age of 60 years, 7 days. No other epitaph is given. Nor I might add, is there any listing in the transcript of anyone by the name of Huber, in spite of the name of the cemetery. I don't know how that was added to the name. I do see in the transcript however, that it lists as sort of a secondary name "Seventh Day Adventist Church." So this may have been a small church cemetery, rather than a family cemetery, as most of our small ones are. If you notice the base of the stone, you can see the outline of the border for this plot.
This stone is for Seth Parks. He also died in 1898, but this large stone lists his age as only 2 years , 5 months and 17 days. No other names are listed as being on this stone. I wonder if there were only a few burials, since the first listing with a date is for 1888 and the last for 1900.
The stone above is for William, son of S. C. and A Gowell, it is also on the border of the family plot as is Sylvester's stone shown previously. I see on the very edge of the photo a small stone inset into the border as well. That got me looking at the very first picture again. And editing figures, because there are two small stones sitting on the border. The white you you can see the corner of here, and on the left corner as you look at the picture another darker one.
And that is it. A small little cemetery, few pictures but still cared for by someone mowing the grass, even if there are no flowers here now.

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