And when I die....

And when I die is the title and introduction to a song by Blood, Sweat and Tears. I pause to ponder my own death here as an adjunct to our traveling. The trigger for this was my visit to the Pioneer Cemetery in Congress, Arizona.

Finding the cemetery is, in itself a challenge. If you are lucky enough to take Ghost Town Road out of Congress, there are signs along the way that will guide you through the desert over an unimproved road which reminded me of the trail we traversed finding the mission in Baja California, Mexico. Once you get into the heart of the desert, there are no more signs, and you wonder if you're about to get lost. Only the few previous tire tracks suggest that you're on the right track. And I could not find a ghost town. I did find the old abandoned Congress gold mine, though.

The sign at the gate says that the cemetery dates from 1887. The gate itself, a wrought iron affair with a flat spring latch that is half broken, has pulled the gatepost so that the gate opens with difficulty.

Once inside, the graves are arranged in rows, marked by ovals of stone. A small few have markers of some sort, but most are just stone ovals over grave sites, no name, no date, just an implicit suggestion that they must have lived here, and died around the turn of the 20th century.

And as I ponder this, I also consider the storied we heard in Scotts Bluff about the hundreds of pioneers who died along the trails, were buried in hasty graves, unmarked, unknowable by us today. Many of those were desecrated by wild animals in search of food. The memory of those souls carried by their friends and kin, those who survived the rest of the trip, to their western destinations. As the memories faded, so did the remnants of the lives of the brave wagoneers struggling to reach a brave new world.

By contrast, my own genealogical research was greatly aided by visiting the tombstones of my ancestors to identify and note their birth and death dates, tying them into vital records and histories to mark the connections in my hereditary past. How lucky I was to find those stones and trails to illustrate my ancestral past.

No such markers survive to guide the descendants of most of those buried in Congress. And for those who trace lineage to many pioneers on the trail, there is most likely not even a place to look for a marker.

And now, I too am roving around the country much like the pioneers. Should I pass on while traveling, what would be the thing to mark my place on this earth. I've been a faithful friend and servant of numerous folks, less so to some others. My family carries on the name that I research so diligently, and for me, that is a sufficient indicator of my having been here. Perhaps for them, and my wife, or more lasting memorial would be appropriate. I don't care. They should do what they feel good doing. For me, an unmarked grave along the trail is as good as anything.