We recently took a day trip up to Plymouth, Indiana, which is where Andrew’s maternal grandfather lives.  We just went for a visit (honestly we don’t get up there enough) and to start helping him look through his stuff because he is most likely moving to an assisted living facility.

So while Andrew took his grandfather’s floor-plan map and measured his furniture to see what was doable in the new place, I got to hang out with said grandfather and chat family tree!  I also got to check out some amazing pictures.

4 generation picture (1895, Plymouth, Indiana) - Back row standing: Maude (Yazel) Seymour, Nancy (Hippert) Yazel (Maude's Mother). Seated: Peter Hippert (Nancy's father), Edna Faye Reed (Maude's daughter and Andrew's great-grandmother)

This above picture was my favorite for one great big obvious reason (hello Beardy McBearderson!) but it’s also interesting  because it is one of those multi-generational pictures that people still take today.  Peter Hippert died just four years after this picture was taken.  Chances are that not many, if any, exist of him before this time.  Peter also did not live in Plymouth.  He still lived in Auglaize County, Ohio at this time.  He was just on a visit, which was probably quite the little journey at that time.

Earlier in the day, when we first got to the house, I mentioned our timetable and said that we might be stopping at a cemetery on the way out of town.  Andrew’s mom decided we should all go and have a little adventure.  She asked her dad, “Are you up for an adventure?”  He answered, “Well, yeah.”  And an adventure we had.

We all piled into the little Pontiac and headed out of town, toward a very small town called Bourbon, Indiana.  Actually, we weren’t headed for Bourbon, we were headed for outside of Bourbon.  The goal was Mount Pleasant Church of the Bretheren.

Andrew’s family on both sides were mainly Church of the Bretheren, and this area of Indiana is full of these little churches.  Unfortunately, according to Roy (the Grandfather), this one will be closing in the fall.  I might have to find out if they have any church records before things get handed off to ‘who knows where’.

Thanks to Google Maps and www.findagrave.com we were able to find the cemetery easily.  When we left the house in Plymouth we were all a little worried about the heat and how Roy would feel outside for so long.  As we drove the temperature dropped…and dropped some more.  We were followed by dark, menacing clouds the whole way.  When we got to the cemetery it was cool and breezy, still humid but so very comfortable.  The clouds were pretty much coming straight for us.

I knew we didn’t have much time, so I started snapping pictures of any headstones with Seymour, Stockman, or Yazel.  These are all names in that branch of Andrew’s family.  I even made sure to get a couple family pics.

From left to right: Gloria (Reed) Nelson, Andrew Nelson (posing?), and James Roy Reed. Visiting Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

The older part of the cemetery was across the street.  Roy was convinced that some of the earlier family members were buried over there, including Peter Hippert and a George Washington Seymour.  I don’t know anything about this GW’s plot, but I did find out that Peter is actually buried at a Horn Cemetery in Ohio.

Andrew and I headed back to the newer section, and immediately a lady in a fabulously comfy looking ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ T-shirt came out of her house next door to tell us that the weather map showed some nasty weather almost right on top of us and she didn’t want us stuck out there.  She said there would probably be hail.

Andrew’s mom rushed to get the car turned around so Roy could hop in.  The sprinkles started the second we got in.  We decided maybe would be a good time to eat, but we would have to get to a restaurant first.  This required driving through what looked like some sort of hell-mouth.  We did it, well Gloria (Andrew’s Mom) did.  The darkest part of the storm wasn’t nearly as horrible as it looked.  It was sort of downpour-y though, and when we got to the restaurant (where I proceeded to consume more carbs than I had in weeks combined) all of us got soaked.

We headed back to the house for a few minutes before we went along on our way back to Indy.  I sort of wish we had looked at a weather map before we left.  The “hell-mouth” we drove through earlier was nothing compared to the near-firestorm we drove through to get home.  I don’t know that I’ve ever driven in a lightning storm that was so prolific.  There was literally lightning every single second for about 15 minutes straight.  Once we finally got out of the storm it followed us home the rest of the way, behind us by about a few miles.  This is what it looked like the entire way home.  We were right on the border of heavenly and hellish weather.

The edge of the storm

I’m going to have to take a trip up north again, and maybe this time check the weather.