Monday, March 12, 2012

Tombstone Tuesday - A Face and Final Resting Place














I wasn't going to do a "Tombstone Tuesday" post today, but since I mentioned my great uncle Adam Tabor Jr in yesterday's post (and since I'm in Colorado Springs for Spring Break with the family).  I thought I'd share a little more about the writer of that letter.

Adam Jr was the 3rd of 4 children born to Adam and Jadwiga Tabor nee Paszkawicz.  He was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania on May 21, 1913 and as far as I know he lived there all his life.  He died on May 16, 1985 and is buried in the Lithuanian National Cemetery in Chinchilla, Pennsylvania (just outside Scranton).  Adam never married.

Even though I knew that Adam Sr, Adam Jr and Jadwiga were buried in the Lithuanian National Cemetery, it took me a very long time (and I'm talking years of searching) to find it.  You see they were said to be members of the Polish National Catholic Church and when I couldn't find the Lithuanian cemetery, I started looking through the PNCC cemetery.  Then one year before a trip home to Pennsylvania, it turned up in a Google search (and I swear it never did before).  Then with the help of a GPS I finally found it.  I'd driven past it several times when out searching and never saw it.  It's small and just off a narrow, winding road.  If you blink...you miss it!

Every time I look and see that Adam Jr died in 1985 I'm stunned by the fact that I never met him.  We never went to the funeral.  I was 13 when he died and I could have had memories of this man, but have none.  Sad.