Great Discovery at the Cemetery

Last week while working at the Evangelical Protestant cemetery in Albany I made an awesome discovery. While looking at the gravestone of Civil War veteran, Philip Myers, who married a distant cousin of mine, Magdelena Sanger, I noticed that there were low spots and clumps of dead grass in spots to the left and to the right of Philip's gravestone.

Philip Myers
photo courtesy Genevieve Philomena Stack Casler

I scraped the dead grass with my foot and discovered two tablet style gravestones that broke off from its buried section. The gravestones fell over, sunk into the ground, and then were covered over by dirt. I always found it surprising that Philip had the only visible gravestone in a large lot.

Immediately I called a distant cousin, Pat, who I was supposed to meet at the cemetery last year. After telling him of my find, he quickly came to the cemetery and helped with this project. Philip is Pat's great great grandfather. One of the newly found gravestones was that of Pat's great great grandmother, Magdalena Sanger and the other was of an uncle, Max Myers.

The gravestones were removed from the soil and Pat cleaned them with D2 while I prepared the area for installing wood frames so that I could fabricate slotted bases for the new found gravestones.

The next day, while mixing cement for the bases, Pat stopped by and he dug out another gravestone that had fallen over and sunk into the ground. This gravestone was that of Mary Myers, daughter of Philip and Magdelena. So, in total, three gravestones that had not seen the light of day for many years were found.

WIFE
MARY MYERS
GOODMAN
1881 - 1949

When coming home I checked the burial lot cards to see how large the plot was and how many burials were interred. The lot was 16' x 12' and there were additional burials also. However after probing the entire plot area, no additional gravestones were found. Below is the lot card.

Today, the gravestones were reset into the newly made bases. The stones will need to be cleaned again with D2 but so far the project looks amazing. Cemeteries always hold stories that are waiting to be found. Sometimes you need to dig to get at them.

Gravestones Correctly Aligned

Myers Lot Overview

MADELINE MYERS
wife of
P. MYERS
Co. A. 18 N.Y.S.V.
Died Oct. 15, 1896
AE 55 Yrs.

PHILIP MYERS
Co. A.
18. N.Y.S. Vols.
Died Dec. 23, 1922
AE 86 Yrs.

MAX MYERS
Co. f.
12 N.Y. Cav.
Died Sept. 4, 1909
AE 31 yrs.