This is not going to be about a place I have been. Rather, it’s about a place I want to go.
Just when I think I’ve absconded all the relevant family-history material from my mom’s condo, she finds a new piece for me to discover. Take for example this photo of a lovely cairn dedicated to my great-great-great-grandparents.
“What’s this?” I asked her.
“Oh, that’s from the time we had a large Brown gathering and went to see this stone near Morden.”
I notice the year stamped on the photo is ’03.
Andrew and I had been married for almost a year when this gathering took place, and of course it wasn’t on our radar. In fact, my parents probably hadn’t even bothered to mention it to us, because we surely would not have attended anyway.
I sighed deeply. In hindsight, it would’ve been great to have been at that gathering, particularly when they went to visit the cairn together!
I think I’ve come across the info somewhere before, that this may be near Kronsgart.
Well. My summertime-wish road-trip-map is certainly filling out nicely!
The stone says:
To the memory of our pioneering ancestors, Jakob Braun and Maria Fast, to their nine children and their spouses, immigrants from South Russia, who nearly all came to Manitoba in 1875. This memorial is respectfully dedicated.
Jakob was first buried in the garden of his homestead, SE 1/4-S1-T2-P5W, at Osterwick. A few years later his remains were moved to the farm of his eldest daughter, Katharina, NE1/4-S16-T2-R5W. When Maria died in 1914 her remains were placed beside those of her husband.
This memorial was erected by third and fourth generation descendants in 1972.
If you’d like to read more about what the Brauns of Osterwick book has to say about the remains-moving expedition of 1907, see my post here.