Welcome to the Augusta Cemetery Website

The Augusta Cemetery is located in the Village of Augusta in Carroll County, Ohio.  The purpose of this website is to help preserve the history of this cemetery, along with the history of the people who are buried there.  We lovingly refer to these people as "residents" of the Augusta Cemetery.  They are the history of Augusta, Ohio, and it is a history worth preserving.

Our old website contained a lot of great information.  Unfortunately, technology marches on, making it necessary to reconstruct this website.  It may be a while before all the information posted on the old website is back online again, but we will be working diligently to make that happen.  You can still reach the old website at http://www.augustacemetery-ohio.com and find information, but you have to deal with the mess.  In the meantime, if you're interested in the family histories of those buried in the Augusta Cemetery, you can visit the genealogy portion of this website by clicking the Family Histories link at the top of this page.
 

The Story Tellers . . .


We are the chosen.  In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors, to put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to tell the family story, and to feel that somehow they know and approve.

Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts, but instead, breathing life into all who have gone before.  We are the story tellers of the tribe.  All tribes have one.  We have been called, as it were, by our genes.  Those who have gone before cry out to us, "Tell our story."  So, we do.  In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. 

Family HistoriesHow many graves have I stood before now and cried?  I have lost count.  How many times have I told my ancestors, "You have a wonderful family; you would be proud of us."  How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me?  I cannot say.

It goes beyond just documenting facts.  It goes to who I am, and why I do the things I do.  It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying, "I can't let this happen.  The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh."  It goes to doing something about it. 

It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish and how they contributed to what we are today.  It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, and their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. 

It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought, and some died, to make and keep us a nation.  It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us.  It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth.  Without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach, that we might be born who we are, that we might remember them.  So we do, with love and caring, and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they, and they are the sum of who we are.

So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family.  It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers.


Written by:  Della Maxine Cummings Wright (1922 - 2001)
Rewritten by her granddaughter:  Della Joann McGinnis Johnson
Edited and reworded in 1943 by:  Tom Dunn

 

Gone Home


Going Home

William Ralph Leatherberry has "gone home." It is this sentiment that reminds Bette of one of her favorite songs. Paul Robeson performed this soulful rendition of "Going Home" at Carnegie Hall on May 9, 1958.


Another favorite song of Bette's is "When We're Gone, Long Gone" sung by Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton.