Keeping Life in Perspective

At the end of March my neighbors and I took a road trip to the Redwoods. I think I gabbed about that with a post on Heceta Head Lighthouse in Oregon, BUT the real reason for the trip was to see the Redwoods and the lighthouses were secondary. The five of us do dinner or some variation at birthdays each year, but on the big "0" or "5" birthdays we do something special. what I want to do at my next one is travel to Greece, but that may be a long ways off.

So on a Friday at noon we headed out in my little Mazda5 (appropriately named, now that I think of it since there are 5 of us!). Mary took the photo above and it's such a great view of us heading off on our adventure.

We stayed in Grant's Pass Friday night and left the next morning to see the redwoods. How totally magnificent they are! I had seen the redwoods years ago when I was a kid, but hadn't been there in decades. We didn't go far enough south to drive through the tree (I remember seeing photos of us doing that before), but other than that we had a great view of the magnificent trees. Looking at these trees, the length of their lives as well as their magnificent stature, just puts life in perspective.

My folks were Jim Reeves fans while I was growing up and while walking through these magnificent woods, I could hear "My Cathedral" in the background of my memory. We also rode a cable car up through the woods and enjoyed a fabulous Native American museum. We walked on the beach and ate every meal out and had latte's across the state. What a fun, fun trip!

Family Signs

One of my many sets of grandparents about 7 generations back was Church and Elizabeth Tabor. Church Tabor was the son of Joseph Tabor and Hannah Church. Church got the lion's share (or would that be a "double portion") of the family names it would appear. Church and Liz had a daughter, Jane Tabor (probably named for Liz' mother Jane Steel - maiden name unknown) who married Nathaniel Healy -- but that's a long and different story.

Last fall when my husband and I spent out 25th anniversary "visiting Kathy's dead relatives" (his laughing description), we visited the cemetery in South Hero VT where Church Tabor and Jane (his mother-in-law, not Elizabeth his wife) Steel were buried along with two of his grandchildren, Jane's son and daughter Church and Sally. We had thought that maybe Nathaniel and Jane would have been there as well . . .but they weren't.

We haven't found the graves of Jane and Nathaniel yet, but while in South Hero we visited a used bookstore above a hardware store. Browsed through some old history books including a history of South Hero that was too pricey to purchase, but there was a reference there to a Tabor Cemetery in West Swanton.

After visiting Church and Elizabeth, and with the goal of maybe finding Jane and Nathaniel, we headed off north. We were staying at a wonderful bed and breakfast in South Hero so we had time to wander to our hearts content. Actually, what we were looking for was Hog Island (so the book said) by West Swanton.

So off we tootled and had a great drive. As we drove onto Hog Island we saw a little gift shop ahead on the left. We figured we'd see if anyone there knew where a Tabor cemetery might be and it was our lucky day. The proprietor told us that if we went back out the way we came in to the very first interesection (we're talking 100 feet maybe), we would find Tabor road to the left and down that way a ways would be the Tabor Cemetery.

We went back and sure enough, there was Tabor Road to the left. To our surprise, there was Church Rd to the right. We were right there at the intersection of the roads which pretty well demonstrated the intersection of the families as well.

We drove down the road a half a mile or so, perhaps a little more, and there was a fenced are with a few tombstones. And among them was Elizabeth Steel, wife of Church Tabor, resting along side James Madison Tabor and a few lesser known Tabors.

Elizabeth Steel Tabor's headstone notes that she was the wife of Church Tabor, but also notes --"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." You can see the white fence surrounding the small Tabor cemetery, which in turn is surrounded by fields.

We still haven't found Jane and Nathaniel's final resting place. The Healy History says he died in Topsham, and I know she died in E Topsham because she was living with her daughter Rosina Healy Richardson at the time. So -- where did they end up????? Another mystery for another day. I can't wait for my next trip back to Vermont and New Hampshire. There are so many places I want to go!