Some folks warn that whatever you put things on the internet will be there forever. I hope so. Because I am forgetful as all get out and am coming to the realization that I’m writing these posts… for myself. To remember.
I feel like I truly am the worst “researcher”. Like, I don’t even follow through, and then I forget what I’ve already looked up. It’s a mess. But I guess I’m learning. SLOWLY. Being aware of my foibles perhaps might help me address them, work with them, or at least work around them? That’s the hope, anyway.
So. Andrew and I go on some micro adventures. I think these are important because, in addition to giving me life, they also help me to look at what is nearby a little closer, and a little more carefully. I’ve noticed that whatever I am around and see all the time, I tend to overlook. Specifically, there are cemeteries I have always known about, and had a notion that there are people I’m descended from buried there, but I didn’t bother to think about who they were or where they came from or what part their lives might have played in my own story.
Very specifically, I’m talking about the Kleefeld EMC cemetery. I first stumbled into that cemetery as a girl at night. Because I had begged my parents to let me attend Pioneer Girls at the Kleefeld EMC — a church we most certainly did not attend. I don’t mean that that was on principle or anything. We just didn’t go there. And this was a problem for me, since I attended school in Kleefeld and I felt like I was the only one who didn’t attend the Kleefeld EMC. By now there are churches all over the place and people mix a lot more. But in the late ’80s and early ’90s, this was an issue. I was clearly missing out. The least I could do was attend Pioneer Girls, for Pete’s sake. And so I did. And then one night after dismissal, a bunch of girls were talking about the cemetery outside the church, in the woods. I was fascinated. They were daring each other to visit the cemetery in the dark. This was very exciting. But also possibly terrible because you are NOT allowed to step on graves. (It is very disrespectful. And also they might GETCHA.) And that might be tough to avoid if you can’t see where you’re going. So we stumbled into the cemetery, screaming at imagined ghosts and other frights. We couldn’t have been in there long before some adults told us to get out of there.
And that was my introduction to the Kleefeld EMC cemetery — arguably one of the more lovely cemeteries in this area, and also quite accessible.
The crazy thing is, for all I knew, I tripped over my great-grandfather’s headstone. I just wasn’t paying attention. No one was.
I’ve visited that cemetery since then, as an adult interested in Mennonite history. But not interested enough to actually know which of my ancestors were buried there. I visited because it’s a great way to access the Peters’ path. (If you know, you know.) And every time I’m there, I think, “Oh right, I should really pay attention to who exactly is buried here. Who am I descended from, who lies here?”
Finally, today, I did it. I visited my Koop great-grandparents, John J.B. Koop and Aganetha Barkman Koop, laid to rest in Kleefeld.
There isn’t really much written about them, and now I need to ask people who might know about who they were. It’s weird that I don’t know much about the great-grandparents whose last name I inherited, and whose community I grew up on the edge of.
But at least now I know where they lie. Not right next to each other, but as Andrew says, it is possible to get both headstones in the same picture at least.
