Days 3-4:  Monticello, AR to Blytheville, AR.  At last, we made it to the city which might hold the answer to Jeanne's quest for the names of our great great grandparents.  With a surname like Miller and no first names, we would definitely be searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack.  We were also looking for Clara's brother Willie, a teen victim of an accidental gunshot, according to family oral history.

  
Then our first lightning bolt of genius struck.  Mother suggested that a local funeral home would know which cemeteries had graves from the late 1800s (our date range) and which were newer.  Bingo!  We stopped at a local mortuary and were advised to try Sandy Ridge Cemetery (pictured above) in the nearby Luxora community and downtown Blytheville's Maple Grove.

We drove into Sandy Ridge first.  Not being as genealogically inclined and savvy as my sister, I pondered over an efficient way to search for the Miller markers.  I thought my strategy might be the day's second stroke of genius.

  

No Millers on the third row...

I was quickly informed that a more hands-on, or rather feet down, approach would be needed.  Jeanne instructed us to look for an angel or a lamb, which she had heard might be on brother Willie's grave.  If we could find a Willie Miller who died in the right date range, maybe we would be able to access some records that would tell us his parents' names.  No luck at Sandy Ridge on either Willie or Miller candidates in the needed time frame.  On to Maple Grove.

  

McHaney Monuments on S. Division Street

Before we could reach the downtown graveyard, we passed McHaney Monuments on the main street into the downtown area.  "Stop!"  Sister J exclaimed.  "Aunt Ada's daughter-in-law told me that the mother's grave had a carving of an angel holding an infant.  If anyone would remember seeing something like that in a local cemetery, it would be someone who creates monuments."

Though our question might have seemed a bit odd to some, the avuncular Glen Whitener, a certified memorialist at McHaney, didn't hesitate to dive in and try to help.  With many years experience in this family business that originated when Woodrow Wilson was President, Glen was a wellspring of information about burial places in the area.  Though his records did not go back far enough to include our Millers, his knowledge about local cemetery history was priceless.  He even had a list of interments for a historical cemetery which had become part of an Army air base in the 1940s.  Stopping to visit McHaney was definitely the second stroke of genius for the day.
  
As we were leaving, Glen gave us what may have been the best advice of our investigation.  As he handed us a business card, he suggested, "If you aren't able to locate the marker you're searching for and you want to keep the family legend alive, I can create that marker for you."

  

Where are you, Willie?

Without Glen's guidance, we would never have known to look behind the city's public library.  When a small abandoned cemetery from the late 1800s was discovered overgrown with bushes and briars in the 1940s, a group of people cleaned it up and preserved the remnants of the scattered and broken stones.  Eventually the markers were installed on the lawn of the library.

After the old Sawyer markers failed to yield a single Miller, we made our way to Maple Grove Cemetery in downtown Blytheville.  Even though the sign at the graveyard's entrance indicated it was opened after 1900, we spent some time examining the markers there.

  

Jeanne-e-ologist at work

Calling it a day, we enjoyed a very tasty meal at the local Holiday Inn's Bistro Eleven 21 and rested up to continue combing Blytheville the following day.  We were determined to leave no stone (or headstone) unturned before leaving this town.

  

Researchers at work

The following morning found us in the Arkansas history room of the Blytheville Public Library.  The local newspaper records we were hoping to examine for the late 1800s did not exist, so we scoured other relevant publications in hopes of picking up some thread.  The one profitable lead we uncovered was a reference to Blytheville's LDS Family History Center, the first we had heard of this resource, which was our next destination.

Frances at the LDS Family History Center

In keeping with the renowned Morman dedication to preserving genealogical records, Family History Centers are branch facilities of the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City.  Local centers provide access to most of the microfilms and microfiche in Salt Lake facility as well as assistance to help patrons identify their ancestors.  Everyone is welcome to use these resources, whether church members or not.

Our guiding angel at the LDS center was the very cordial and helpful Frances, who truly put the "genial" in our genealogy search.  With her assistance, we finally made some headway in our quest.  In some of the records she searched, Frances located a family with children having most of the same names as Clara and her siblings.  The dates looked right.  Frances was confident.

Maybe we found our needle after all.  Lewis and Elizabeth Miller, we believe you just may be our great great grandparents.  Welcome to the family.

  

  

Political Genius:  Back in the 1980s, Blytheville's then mayor visited the city of Evansville, Indiana.  While there, he observed a steel arch constructed at the entrance to a brick-lined street which led to a renovated, renewed section of the city's downtown area.  The good mayor decided that his town needed not one but several of these arches.  Though City Council opposed the expense, Hizzoner forged ahead, refusing to reveal how deep he dug into the city coffers for his pet project. Unfortunately, the arches on Blytheville's Main Street do not have quite the same effect as Evansville's since the Arkansas arches are placed at random street corners without an appealing view through the arch

  

  

Dixie Pig's Pork

Love your shirt!  (Jeanne had it first.)

All smiles before lunch was served at the Dixie Pig

Now we know why the pig is winking.

Huge oak at Sandy Ridge Cemetery