Visiting the graves of one's ancestors can bring with it a certain peace of mind that comes with paying homage to the lives and spirits of those who came before -- knowing that here, on this plot of earth, their journey finally ended.  It can remind us too, as perhaps nothing else can, of how short our time on this Earth really is, of how we'll all end up just as they did -- ashes and dust and memories.      Where, we wondered, did Bailey T. Baldwin find his final resting place?  What of his beloved wife, Margaret Bleau dit Rossignal Bottineau Baldwin?  And their daughter, the one who cared for them throughout their declining years, Lucy Baldwin McClure Doyle?      If you search for "Bailey T. Baldwin" on Ancestry.com, an item will appear under the heading "Minnesota Cemetery Inscription Index."  Clicking on that item will provide the following information: BAILEY T. BALDWIN   VET   GAR   224  3  B      This tells you that Bailey T. Baldwin was a veteran of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR, or Union Army).  It also gives you the precise coordinates of his grave. What it doesn't tell you is which cemetery.      Since there are about 82,000 cemeteries scattered across the length and breadth of Minnesota, and dozens of them in and around the Twin Cities, this information on the location of Bailey's grave seemed, well, useless.  Fortunately, the entry on Bailey T. Baldwin is accompanied by a citation.  So Mike googled "John Danby Minnesota Cemetery Inscription Index" and, thanks to the Owatanna Public Library, found the full listing.      Bailey, it turns out, was buried in Hillside Cemetery in Minneapolis -- the same cemetery in which Nellie Kinsman Lang Blowe Church was buried, and just a stone's throw east of Bailey's house at 716 Lincoln Ave.      So Mike emailed Bailey' s great-great-granddaughter Jeane Morneau DeCoursey to tell her the good news.  She'd been wanting to find Bailey's grave for a very long time.  Delighted, Jeane told Mike that she and her husband Bill were heading out to Hillside Cemetery the very next day.        "I am so excited about this!" wrote Jeane.      The next evening, Mike received the following email:   Hi Mike,   Well Bill and I went to Hillside Cemetery. Went to the office with my list of Baldwins. The lady there was more into sales than into wanting to look up old grave plots. She did find Bailey T, Margarite, Lucy Doyle and Mayme Bladwin. Mayme is Irwin's wife and Irwin is Frank J. Baldwin's son. She said that she didn't have an Irwin Baldwin there. I told her that his death certificate stated that he was buried at Hillside. She told Bill and I to look around by Mayme's grave and maybe we would find it, and let them know if we did. We found it and we let them know about it. They said they would check it out and give us a call if that was right. How stupid, I took a photo of both Irwin and Mayme Baldwin's gravestones.   I hate to tell you this Mike, we could not find any gravestones for Bailey T., Margarite and Lucy Doyle. When we were at the office, I asked if they had gravestones. Ladies reply was that she had no way of knowing, so we would just have to go out there and try to find the grave plot.   I was so disappointed in not finding their gravestones. It was so hard to even know where they might be located. The map they give you is so hard to figure out. All we know is that Bailey T. and Margarite are side by side. Lucy is very close to where they are too. This is what is stated on the cards:   Interment No.                   Name                             Age 4160                    Bailey T. Baldwin                    83 years Lot   224               Sec.   B               Grave 3        7" 9"F Date of death   Dec. 19th, 1904    Date of Burial  April 25th, 1905 Remarks- Reception House, Dec 21st, 1904 Interment No                     Name                             Age 3046                        Margarite Baldwin                74 years Lot  224                 Sec. B                 Grave 2 Date of Death  March 31st 1900     Date of Burial April 25, 1900 Remarks  Reception House,  April 3rd, 1900   Interment No.                    Name                              Age 5515                    Lucy Doyle                               58 years Lot 472                     Sec. B                 Grave 1     1'6" F Date of Death   July 24, 1910       Date of Burial  July 26, 1910   Bill did take a photo of this rock or stone that could be Bailey or Margarite but not certain at all about that. We tried. I'm thinking maybe Tom might have more luck trying to find it.   Well let me know what you think.   Take care.   Jeane and Bill

Here are Bill's photos of the stone in question:

Photos of what might possibly be the remains of Bailey T. Baldwin's or Margaret Baldwin's headstone, Hillside Cemetery, Minneapolis, courtesy of William D. DeCoursey

     "Bill is so sure that that could be Bailey T. or Margarite," wrote Jeane. "Not me it just looks like nothing to me." 

     I'd have to go with Jeane on this one, concluded Mike.

     What to do in the face of a such a heart-wrenching dead-end?  Give up?  Abandon all hope?  No! -- what you do is, you call Tom!  Bless his heart, Tom can be infernally stubborn when he wants to be.  Resolute as a mule -- you should see him tear out a dormer wall!  (Photos available upon request; video clips forthcoming.)  If Bailey's gravestone exists, if it still bears an inscription, Mike thought, Tom will find it.

     Hillside Cemetery, it should be noted, is absolutely huge, one of the oldest and biggest cemeteries in Minneapolis, featuring "one hundred and twenty acres of rolling green hills, enormous oaks, maples and evergreens, and a breathtaking view overlooking the Minneapolis skyline," according to their website (which, sadly, does not include a map).  One hundred and twenty acres?!?  With maybe a couple of hundred graves per acre, that's a whole lot of acres, and a whole lot of graves.  And, with a staff seemingly more interested in peddling new plots than in helping the descendents of their onetime customers find their ancestors' graves -- and with maps crying out for updating and clarification -- it's no wonder Jeane & Bill had such a hard time.  (Right:  Magnificently airbrushed photo of the exquisitely maintained 65 foot Bell Tower at Hillside Cemetery, from their website, www.hillside-cemetery.com)

Entrance, Hillside Cemetery, Minneapolis; the lovely flowerbeds and attractive façades offer a distinctive contrast to longterm conditions in the older sections of the cemetery; photo by Tom

     Unfortunately, Tom's initial forays brought him no more luck than Jeane & Bill had had.  After spending an hour or so walking the length and breadth of Section B, and looking at every headstone along the way, he phoned Mike to tell him what he planned to do next.  So, while we wait for Tom to put the heat on 'em at the main office (this being a family-oriented website we cannot say exactly what that means, though we can refer you to the "alternative interrogation techniques" recently sanctioned by the president), we thought we'd show you one of their maps -- maps that would be helpful were they actually representative of what one actually finds when one actually walks the actual grounds:

Official Map, Hillside Cemetery, Minneapolis (click on image for larger view)

     After an hour or so, Tom called back to report that the lady in the main office seems to have little actual knowledge of the cemetery's actual layout, had no idea where the gravestones were, and said that if he wanted to find Section B, Lot 224 he had to follow the map.  So Tom returned to Section B, but all he could find in the vicinity of what appeared to be Lot 224 were two nondescript stones embedded in the grass -- doubtless the same stones Bill DeCoursey had photographed two days before.  Then Tom said there was only one thing left to do:  start digging!   So he grabbed his pick and shovel and started in . . .  (Right: Tom's determination to find Bailey's grave came as something of a shock to the staff at Hillside Cemetery)

      All the while Mike was trying to figure out what the blazes was going on.  As best as he could reckon, John Danby, the compiler of the Minnesota Cemetery Inscription Index, could not have merely sat in various cemetery offices with his laptop, tapping in data from the index cards.  His entry for Bailey T. Baldwin says "VET GAR" -- information that does not appear on Bailey's Hillside Cemetery index card.  John Danby must have gotten at least some of his information directly from the gravestone.  Which in turn meant that there had to be a gravestone, somewhere . . . there could be no other explanation . . .

     Meanwhile, Tom looked in Section B, Lot 472 for Lucy Doyle's grave and found nothing -- no headstone, no remnant of what was once the base of a headstone -- nothing except a little concrete marker half buried in the grass indicating the lot number (we were kidding about the pick & shovel, but not about this or what follows).  (Right:  concrete marker no. 472 indicating the location Lucy Doyle gravesite at Hillside Cemetery)

     So Tom went back to the main office again.  The lady told him that sometimes the headstones fall over and sink into the grass, but if he had something to poke into the ground, like a stick or something, he could try poking into the earth to find the fallen stone. 

     So Tom returned to Section B, Lot 472, got down on his hands and knees, and started hitting the ground with his hammer.  To the right -- to the left -- forward -- backward -- smashing his hammer into the soft moist grass.  A passing maintenance worker saw him, walked over and asked, "So whatcha doin' there?"   Tom described his dilemma.  So the maintenance worker kindly got out his shovel and started poking around with him, plunging his shovel all around Lot 472.  All around the two of them poked and plunged.  Eight -- ten -- twelve inches deep.  "Huh," said the maintenance worker, wiping the sweat from his brow after 10 or 15 minutes of determined poking.  "Guess it's not here." 

     Tom's photographs of Section B of Hillside Cemetery show what dilapidated condition it's in, with headstones toppled over, broken in half, laying on the grass, and many missing altogether.

Hillside Cemetery, Minneapolis, all taken by Tom, Sept 2006

     Repeatedly querying the lady in the main office -- using, we should note, not a single "alternative interrogation technique" (we were kidding about that, too) but only his abundant native Minnesota charm, combined with a steely determination to discover the truth -- Tom finally dragged it out of her.   When headstones fall over, she acknowledged, what they generally do, their standard procedure in such cases, is to pitch them into the trash, leaving behind only the bases on which they once stood.  Then she tried to sell him the lot adjacent to no. 472.  "You're in luck!" she exclaimed.  "It's just opened up!" 

Detail of Section B, Hillside Cemetery, showing the relative locations of the graves of Bailey T. & Margaret Baldwin and their daughter Lucy Doyle; photo of this area appears below

     So now we know what happened to Bailey, Margaret, and Lucy's headstones.  They fell over, and Hillside Cemetery threw them away.   (That would explain John Danby's database -- he retrieved the information "VET GAR" from Bailey's gravestone before it tumbled over and Hillside Cemetery pitched it.) 

     That seems really negligent.  Disrespectful.  Criminal even.  What about fulfilling your contract?  What about respecting the spiritual needs of the living, not to mention the dignity of the dead? 

     We understand that cemeteries like Hillside have tight budgets and limited resources.  We understand that the maintenance budget might be too small to include the repair of headstones that have fallen over or broken in half.  But there would seem to be a number of simple and inexpensive solutions to the problem of fallen or damaged headstones: 

     For instance:  what would be so hard about digging out a bit of earth and embedding the fallen headstone, face up, into the grass?  (That way the grass-cutters could still zip around on their lawn mowers and wouldn't have to waste valuable time weed-whacking.)  Or, what about taking a snapshot of a fallen headstone before pitching it into the garbage, and then filing the snapshot with the grave's index card?  Or, at minimum, keeping a record of which headstones they've pitched?  Surely there's money enough in the budget for a few disposable cameras, or a pencil and a pack of 3x5 cards.  (Right: General vicinity under which lie the remains of Bailey T. Baldwin and Margaret Rushenall Baldwin, Hillside Cemetery, Minneapolis)

     What we discovered, in short, is that the headstones of Bailey T. Baldwin, Margaret Bleau dit Rosignal Bottineau Baldwin, and Lucy Baldwin McClure Doyle do not exist.  Or, better said, that they do exist, somewhere, buried under tons of garbage at some landfill, but that they're not where they're supposed to be -- atop the remains of Bailey T. Baldwin, Margaret Bleau dit Rosignal Bottineau Baldwin, and Lucy Baldwin McClure Doyle at Hillside Cemetery in Minneapolis.

    By way of consolation, at least now we know where Bailey, Margaret, & Lucy found their final resting places.  And, that if we want to spend a few quiet moments near those places, paying our respects to their lives and spirits, amidst the towering oaks and magnificent maples and crumbling headstones, we can.  And that is no small thing to have learned.

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Next Chapter: Living legacies:  the great-Great-Great-Great Grandchildren of Bailey T. & Margaret Baldwin

 

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