Ok, here goes nothing [gulp!]

My first blog post! Don't know quite where to start! My brain was full of things to write about until I actually sat down to write!

Guess Ill start with my latest adventure - a trip to Elmhurst Cemetery in St. Paul, MN.  This adventure truly started when my niece, Kimberly, made an extraordinary discovery.  Drew received a phone call from her asking if we knew someone named Anna Solberg or William Bley. Hubby said that Anna was his grandmother and Bill Bley was his grand uncle. Imagine our surprise when Kimmie said that she was cleaning out a closet at the Veteran's Administration where she works and came across a grave marker for William Bley!! So after some phone calls and digging into family papers we determined that William was buried at Elmhurst Cemetery. 

Our daughter, Caity, turned 21 on April 23rd and she wanted her father and I to come down to the Cities for a couple of days to celebrate. She wasn't too happy about having to make a pit stop at a cemetery, but gave in graciously and was a trooper. As we were going to be there on the weekend, I had called the cemetery during the week looking for some plot numbers to help us locate the gravesite. Nice man said that he would tape the info to the front door of the office for us.

Upon arrival I quick jumped out and took a picture of the entry sign

True to his word, there was an envelope taped to the door! Inside was a map of the cemetery and highlighted were William Bley and Martin Solberg [hubby's grandfather]. And what a treat, he had even put copies of the burial cards in the envelope, too! I learned early on to try to get copies of the burial cards for a plot. It is a great way to know for sure who is buried in a plot even if they don't have a marker, which we ran into in this case, but I digress.....

Back to Bill Bley! Easily found the family marker and Bill's marker.

Hmmm, did hubby know he was a Bugler? Nope!

And guess who else we found! Hubby's great grandparents, Adolph Bley and Frances Port Bley!

Not a very good cleaning job. Like an idiot I forgot my cemetery bucket!

So back in the car we get and hunt down Drew's Solberg grandparents, Martin and Anna. We were able to find Martin, but sadly, Anna has no marker.

We know she is buried next to Martin though from the burial card. We'll have to see what we can do about getting her a marker!