>>/45588/
got some 8kun digs for ya

Evergreen Cemetery DIG - not LA EC - so many Evergreen cemeteries, seems very interdasting…

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/forgotten-grave-reveals-a-local-link-to-obama/

 

Forgotten grave reveals a local link to Obama

By Eric Stevick Herald Writer

Saturday, October 25, 2008 11:17pm

EVERETT — Rachel Wolfley’s grave marker at the Evergreen Cemetery in Everett hadn’t seen the light of day in decades. 

It had literally faded into the landscape, covered long ago by a thick rug of grass and forgotten over nearly a century since she died. 

There is no date of birth or death or family tribute on the gray concrete block, just her name — and the last name is misspelled.

Wolfley’s marker would no doubt still be buried beneath the cemetery sod were it not for her famous great-great-great grandson, who on Nov. 4 could be elected the next president of the United States. 

“Everett and Snohomish County now have a close connection with Barack Obama we didn’t have before,” said Jim Shipman, a retired funeral home director who once managed the Evergreen Cemetery. “Who would have known?” 

Wolfley, the widow of a Civil War veteran, spent the last few years of her life living with her daughter and son-in-law at 3611 Hoyt Ave. in Everett. Her grave marker on a hill overlooking I-5 was unearthed and cleaned Oct. 14 after her identity was confirmed.

Shipman has been working with local historians, Civil War buffs and genealogy sleuths who connected the dots between the presidential candidate and the long-lost grave by using public records and family trees. 

The Obama connection is one of a long list of surprises Shipman has encountered over the years as he wanders the 100 acres of cemetery hillside where more than 50,000 people are buried. Much of his energy since he retired five years ago has been focused on finding the grave markers of Civil War veterans who are honored each fall in a colorful ceremony complete with cannon blasts. A search for their life stories begins each time a record of another soldier is found. 

That Civil War research is what opened the door to finding Rachel Wolfley’s grave site. 

Snohomish resident Karyn Weingarden puts cemetery records, Civil War veterans’ records and obituaries of Snohomish County pioneers on a Web site for people tracing their family roots. She also adds the obituaries of the wives of Civil War veterans who died in Snohomish County on the same site. 

In 2002, Weingarden found Wolfley’s 1911 obit in The Everett Daily Herald. On a genealogy Web site Weingarden posted information about Wolfley and the woman’s daughter’s family name — Butts — so anyone searching the surnames Wolfley or Butts would know where the family settled. 

“I did not know of her connection to Obama, only to a Civil War veteran and a family living in Snohomish County,” Weingarden said. 

Genealogy and history buffs who had studied Obama’s roots recently made the connection when they saw her posting. Some knew that Wolfley’s husband, Robert, was buried in Olathe, Kan., and that Wolfley had died in Snohomish County. What they didn’t know was where she was buried.

When workers at the Evergreen Funeral Home and Cemetery received a call last week from a woman wondering if Obama’s great-great-great grandmother was buried on their grounds, they went looking. 

Wolfley’s name was pulled from records at the cemetery and a maintenance worker poked around the burial plot to find the marker. He cleared a grassy patch only to find Wolfley’s last name was misspelled as Walfley. 

Wolfley died Feb. 8, 1911, was buried four days later. She is next to her son-in-law and daughter, Nathan and Addie Butts, Obama’s great-great aunt, who died in 1936 and 1937, respectively. 

Addie was also known as Anna. 

Will provide rest of article in another post…