Fairview Cemetery

Fairview is a large cemetery with a variety of carved granite stones.  Sandy and I knew that finding our ancestors would be the proverbial “needle in a haystack”.  What can I say?

We are German.  We formulated a plan.

She took one end and I took the other.  Soon we began to shout at one another across the silent grass when we found an Ashbaucher!  and then another one.  and then another one.

This is the rest of the story, as promised,

about Wendell Ashbaucher of Bluffton, Indiana.

Wendell was laid to rest next to a small,  unexpected marker.  We were surprised to discover that another son, born before Will, had passed away as an infant, before his second birthday.  We found little Maxwell, gone and once forgotten.  My great grandmother never spoke of this boy; perhaps the pain was too great or his tragic death too common in that time.  Maxwell had truly been my paternal grandfather’s oldest brother.

The planes would literally rattle the window panes as they roared overhead.

Sandy and I are cousins who grew  up in Chicago spending time at our Grandma and Grandpa Ashbaucher’s house at 63rd and Cicero, near the White Castles that sits at the corner of Midway Airport. Grandpa would give us all the change in his pocket and we would cut up the alley to the restaurant and order hamburgers for 18 cents each.  He was an avid fisherman, a quiet man who loved to camp in tents.  Following tradition, she and I were camping and paddling our way through Bluffton, Indiana to find our roots.

James Woodrow Ashbaucher, 1918-1972, my grandpa (center) who passed away unexpectedly, from a heart attack.

But I digress.  Standing among the headstones  that spring day, Sandy and I witnessed that the Ashbauchers had a real presence in Bluffton, Indiana during the early 1900′s.

There was Benjamin Ashbaucher, a prolific photographer whose works can be found for sale on ebay today.

We also found our original family; our great-great-great grandfather, John Ashbaucher (Johan Ashbaucher) who immigrated to America from Switzerland/Germany with his wife.  Together, they passed through Ellis Island just two years before the Civil War broke out.  My three times great grandpa joined the Union Army and attained the  military rank of a senior commissioned officer.

This man and his wife could never have imagined me.  Yet, with thankfulness in my heart, I placed my hand on their grave stones, a product of their immortality.

Rest in peace, Ashbauchers.  You lie near those who knew you and loved you once upon a time in America and you are remembered by those who live now, a century later.

My hope is that through the use of this technology, this story, OUR story, will live on into the future so that other Ashbauchers enjoy this special sense of self.