Part II
I had just finished up University and was with my mom visiting Kansas City. Mom would share with me bits of stories from her childhood but this trip mom shared more than she had in the past. She talked about being afraid of the cemetery on the hill near her church. Often the youth would dare each other to go into it at night.
At the word cemetery my ears perked up. Wait, what cemetery. I did not remember seeing a cemetery near there. Mother said there was a Native American Burial ground at the top of the hill.
This cemetery has a park like setting yet the peace that you feel there is different, unsettled. Established in 1843 there is an estimated 800 buried there with only a few stones marking graves. After much pressure to develop it, in 1916 it was made into a National Park, though to this day it remains a target for development.
The feeling of peace I felt was much like walking into a Church or cathedral. Its sacred ground. Those interned there are a part of a story that woven together is a large part of the American story.
This is the feeling that I get when I visit placed like Gettysburg or Arlington. The stories the soil holds. The tears that were shed. Life is precious and high price for our freedom. This unsettled feeling I believe comes from the fear that those lives have been wasted.
Part III
I can trace our family ties to the Mayflower and the founding of America. I have ancestors that have fought in every war. I am proud of my American heritage. Yet with each war and conflict there was a price our family paid.
During World War II that life was that of Robert Keele. Bobby as Grandma called him was one of her older brothers. Bobbie was wounded during the second wave of the invasion of France. He died a few days later of those wounds. Bobby is buried in France, the one grave that my grandmother never got to see.
One day in honor of my grandmother Betty L. (Keele) Reynolds I would like to visit France and place a wreath on Robert L. Keele’s cross. Just like she taught me to do so many years ago.
Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him…Colossians 2:7