Gravestones 9 to 12 - Ridgewood Cemetery in Wellston Ohio

 

My great grandmother Calfernie (nee Braley) Fink. Also known as Granny or Grandma Fern. She's the original owner of my sewing machine and the reason it's named Fern.

 

Fern's parents: Cora (nee Gleason, daughter of Levi and California) and Ripley Braley, my great great grandparents on the Fink-Braley line. 

 

William and Minerva (nee Dupre) Fink, my great great grandparents. 

 

My great aunt Esther Jo, my grandpa Bill's older sister. Not a direct ancestor, but a favorite relative and probably the one that I got my obsession with genealogy from. 

All of these graves are in the Ridgewood Cemetery in Wellston Ohio. 

Gravestone #8 Levi and California Gleason

Levi and California (nee Bishop) Gleason. My third great grandparents on the Fink-Braley side. Salem Cemetery, not too far from Wellston. Their graves are near the little church that's in the cemetery. 

Levi, a veteran of the Civil War, also had his own gravestone. He served in the 194th Ohio Infantry.

Gravestone #7 Jordan Mascall Mannering and his wife Elizabeth

Jordan Mascall Mannering, my 6th great grandfather on the Fink-Ewing line. He was in the Revolutionary War. This is his new tombstone. Centerville/Thurman Cemetery in Gallia County, Ohio.

Jordan Mascall Mannering's original gravestone.

Jordan Mascall Mannering, both headstones. Jordan is the only Revolutionary War veteran buried in Gallia County.

Elizabeth (nee Clark) wife of Jordan Mannering. My sixth great grandmother on the Fink-Ewing line.

Gravestone #6 John and Annette Fink

Annette (nee Ewing) and John Franklin Fink, my third great grandparents on the Fink side. Dixon Run Cemetery, Gallia County, Ohio.

Annette's the daughter of Mary from the previous post.

This cemetery was probably the most difficult to get to -- up a narrow winding guardrail-less 'road' at the top of hill. Next time, we park at the bottom and walk up.

Gravestone #5 Mary White Ewing

Mary (nee White) Ewing, my 4th great grandmother on the Fink-Ewing line and wife of William Ewing. She's buried in Franklin Cemetery in Gallia County, Ohio.

If I remember correctly, her grave is towards the front, on the left side of the cemetery.

Close us of her gravestone.

Food for Thought

In 1920, the 19th amendment was finally ratified, granting women of the United States the legal right to vote.

 This is my Grandma Fern. I've talked about her before. She was born in 1902, when women couldn't vote.

 This is my grandma Minerva. She was born in 1879 and married in 1901. She raised a family and lived in a country where she had no power to choose the government she was living under. When she died in the early 1950s, women had only been able to vote for a mere thirty years.

This is grandma Leah with her chickens. She was born in the 1850s and married around 1883. Like Minerva, she lived and raised a family in a country where she had no right to vote. She died in 1936, when women had only had that right for SIXTEEN years.

Many of my favorite ancestors never had the right to vote -- pioneers Mary McNeil Ewing and Elizabeth Curtis Hollingsworth. Grandma Mary Fox that died in a flash flood in the late 1800s. Just to name a few.

I also have ancestors that fled here seeking freedom -- the Puritans (Brewster), the Huguenots (Dupres) and more than likely the Quakers (Hollingsworth).

So please, just remember that today is a day when we exercise our hard earned rights. We have the right to vote in this country, a right that many of our ancestors were denied, a right that millions around the world don't have even today. We have freedom. Use it.