Robert F Wildey Burial Record for Spring Grove Cemetery

This is my tribute to this week’s theme, “Close to Home.” I grew up in Pennsylvania, even though my family was originally from Cincinnati.  I have moved around the country for my husband’s job, but home is now West Virginia.

Over 15 years ago my husband accepted the job of Chief Ranger at New River Gorge National River. We packed our belongings and made the long trek from Santa Fe, NM, to Beckley, WV. As we settled into our new home, I was dismayed to learn that access to a Family History Center would become more difficult. The distance from my new home would be 73 miles instead of 12 like it had been in Santa Fe. On a positive note, Internet was becoming more important to genealogy and, as I had accepted a full-time job with a great deal of responsibility, most of my family research would be done late at night.

During one of these late nights, I was combing though the records of Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio, looking for relatives. I have a lot of family interred at Spring Grove, including my paternal grandparents. On this particular occasion I was searching for Wildeys, who would be cousins of my paternal grandmother, Katherine F. Schatz Biermann. Katherine’s aunt was Anna Schatz who married Frank Wildey in 1878.

One of the tricks to using the Spring Grove records (and other cemeteries that allow you to search for records by plot number) is find a relative, make a note of the plot number, then do a new search using the number. Make sure you clear out the surname from the search field before doing this!

I located Frank and Anna Wildey in section 122, lot 151 of Spring Grove. When I searched by plot, I learned that there were four other burials with them: Mae Ruby, William H. Ruby, Gertrude Wildey and Robert F. Wildey. I made the correct assumption that Mae Ruby must be the married name of Anna Mae Wildey. The big surprise, though, was that her place of death was listed as White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. That was really close to home – an hour away and the location of the famous Greenbrier Hotel. At work, I had strong business ties to The Greenbrier. Further, my grandparents vacationed there back in the 1960’s. Could they have been visiting Mae and her family? Next, I looked at the burial record for Mae’s youngest brother, Robert. You could have knocked me other with a feather! Robert F. Wildey died in Beckley, West Virginia, in 1958. I realized that while I didn’t have roots in my new hometown, I had shoots. Mae and Robert Wildey were my first cousins twice removed.

Robert F Wildey Burial Record for Spring Grove Cemetery

I was astonished and immediately set about trying to find out what I could about my new West Virginia family. I wondered, did they have children? Did they stay in West Virginia? Did I have relatives in my own backyard?

The first thing I did was research Mae Wildey. It was easy to find information on her husband, William H Ruby. I located a bio that described his family background, work career and business ventures (which largely centered around coal mining).  William showed up from Cincinnati, Ohio, at the Prince train station in 1907, where he found work as a rod man on a surveying crew. He returned to Cincinnati to marry Mae Wildey on 11 June 1913. While I found less detailed information about Robert F. Wildey, he seems to have joined his sister in West Virginia and worked hand-in-hand with his brother-in-law. Robert, it seems, had a head for numbers and he held a number of bookkeeper/accounting positions. Robert married Gertrude Forsting on 11 June 1917, four years to the day after his sister wed William Ruby. I managed to fill in the blanks about the children of these two couples, and even identified some possible grandchildren. I began to wonder if I might ever meet any of my West Virginia cousins.

One day about six months after my discovery, I was clearing my desk at work. I was tossing a list of contact information for the board of the West Virginia Development Office. The paper was literally at arm’s length and ready to drop into the waste paper basket. A name caught my eye. Was this the man that one of my cousins had married? I retrieved the paper and studied it. It was certainly possible. He was an attorney, and I had done business with his law firm. Another four weeks passed and I ran into my attorney. I asked him if he knew my cousin’s husband. He did and was able to confirm that I had the correct family. I requested that he let his colleague know that I would be calling his wife, so that it wouldn’t be a cold call.

I waited a few more weeks before I phoned. My cousin, Barbara, was very gracious and my attorney had done a good job of smoothing the way. I asked her if she was familiar with Tamarack, where I worked. She said she knew it well, and we decided she would meet me for lunch there.

When the day for our lunch date came, Barbara brought along her mother, Virginia, the eldest daughter of Robert F. Wildey. What a treat that was! Virginia had memories of traveling back to Cincinnati as a girl. She remembered more than my father seemed to about family. I suppose it made a greater impression on her, because she wasn’t there on a daily basis. Virginia talked about her grandmother, Anna Wildey. She said that she was always in a great hurry to finish up supper, get the dishes washed up and the grand kids put to bed. What was the big rush? It seems that the Wildeys were fanatics about playing cards. I had to laugh. My grandparents, also, loved card games, and while I was never hurried off to bed, I know that it was one of their primary forms of entertainment. I don’t play cards often anymore, but I certainly enjoy playing and am a fair hand at pinochle. Virginia shared a lot of family information, and I have occasionally seen Barbara since our first meeting. I am still amazed that I found relatives so close to home. I never tire of telling West Virginians that I may not have roots in the Mountain State, but I have shoots here.