- My Grandpa, Guy E. Burt, 1908-2006
I’ve posted some on this blog about genealogy being my personal favorite cold weather pass time, and I’ve probably already said I’m sort of the family “Keeper of the Dead.” It’s not really as macabre as it sounds. I just do a lot of ‘digging into our family past and try to get at least reasonably accurate answers to old questions.
My most recent excursion into the past took me back to around 1900 in what was then Indian Territory looking to confirm the fate of two of my great-great aunts.
The driving force behind this particular search is the fact that there is a group of graves bounded by a concrete curb at the Rush Springs Cemetery that holds the mortal remains of several of my Grandfather’s relatives, and only three of those graves are marked. My ultimate intention is to confirm the identity of everyone who is buried in that group of plots, then to place a marker to memorialize their final resting places, and I think I have finally accomplished the first half of that goal.
My interest in this particular cemetery started back in the 1970s when my Grandpa, Guy Burt, took me there to show me where his mother, Lizzie Viola (Summey) Burt was buried.
Lizzie Viola (Summey) Burt, 1883-1919
On that trip, he pointed out to me the concrete curb that surrounds a piece of ground roughly 12′ wide by 45′ long. At the south end of the plot there is a headstone marking the graves of David Crockett Coffman who was my Grandpa’s step-Great Grandpa. His wife, and my 4th great Grandmother, Sarah Ann (Calfee) Burt Coffman is buried by his side.
David Crockett Coffman and Sarah Ann (Calfee) Burt Coffman, Step Father & Mother of S.E. Burt
At that time, my Grandpa had placed a grave marker just south of the middle of the large curbed area to memorialize his Mama’s grave. He told me that she died when he was only about ten years old, and that he and his father, John Oscar Burt, built that concrete curb around the family graves. Grandpa said that the family was too poor to buy Lizzie a stone marker, but that his father etched Lizzie’s name into the curb to mark her burial site. When Grandpa and I looked that day we couldn’t find where it was etched.
Burt family burial plot before being tidied up.
Fast forward 40 some years… The family plot has been left alone for decades since all of the family has moved away or passed away. A few years ago, my husband and I moved back to Oklahoma and now live near Rush Springs, so we went up to investigate and to visit the graves.
What we found was a plot that needed some TLC, so we decided to tidy things up a little bit. Not that the city has neglected the place, it just needed a little more attention than simple mowing. We went back up with shovels in hand and cleared the gnarled Bermuda grass shoots from around the concrete curb. In the process, we found Lizzie’s name clearly marked on the north-west corner of the concrete curb.
Lizzie's name etched into the curb by my great grandfather, John Oscar Burt in 1919.
Lizzie's grave marker relocated to her actual burial site.
We debated about moving her head stone, but finally decided that if Grandpa was still living it would have been something he would have done himself. I know it bothered him that he didn’t know exactly where to place it back in the 70s. I double-checked with my mother who agreed, so we did move the stone to match with the name on the curb.
Now, as a side story, the day we moved the stone something very odd happened to me that I can’t explain. We got fairly dirty clearing the grass from the curb, and there is a running spring in the park across the street from the cemetery. We stopped there to wash our hands and while I was doing just that at the spring, something pushed on my lower back. I can only equate it to having a big dog push on you with it’s nose. It was just a gentle nudge, nothing more, but when I looked, there was nothing behind me at all. Like I say, I have no explanation what this may have been, but let’s just say I took it as a sign of approval that we did right in moving Lizzie’s stone…
But back to the main story…
Stephen Evan Burt, John Oscar Burt, (S.E.'s son and my Grandpa's father) Orran Oscar Burt (S.E.'s brother)
Over the past few years I’ve been trying to piece together the rest of the Burt history. I have found evidence that several of the Burts were also buried in that plot at Rush Springs, including Stephen Evan Burt, my Grandpa’s Grandpa. I also believe that S.E.’s first wife is buried in the same plot.
According to the history that has been passed down in the family, Minerva (Summers) Burt was the “first white woman” buried in the Rush Springs Cemetery. According to written records on the topic, the first burial recorded at Rush Springs was another woman. Now, whether the distinction there is if the burial was recorded, both of these may be true stories. I do know that Minerva’s burial was unrecorded. In fact, all of the Burt burials were unrecorded.
It turns out that the Burts took care of their own and that included doing their own burial of deceased family members. At that time, the family had next to nothing after having gone through the Civil War and having lost everything. They had moved from place to place during the years of Reconstruction, living in Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, and finally settling in the Indian Territory in the late 1880s.
The family story has it that Minerva died in 1893 and was buried at Rush Springs. It is also believed that two of Minerva and S.E.’s daughters died in the late 1890s. These are my great-great aunts mentioned above.
Valley Burt and Lula Burt were Minerva and S.E.’s youngest daughters, born in 1883 and 1890, respectively. By 1900 they have both vanished from any census records. They aren’t living with S.E., who by 1900 had remarried, they weren’t listed in the household of their grandmother or sisters, or their brother, John Oscar Burt. There is no record that Valley ever married, and Lula was far too young in 1900 to be married, so the only logical conclusion is that they had both perished before the turn of the century. Some family members show the girls dying in 1898 and 1896, but finding hard proof has been impossible to date. All of this leads me to believe that they probably did die before 1900, and that they would have been buried near their mother in the Rush Springs Cemetery.
In 1919, both Lizzie and Stephen Evan died. I couldn’t find the particular edition of the newspaper that would have listed Lizzie’s death, but did find Stephen Evan’s obituary that stated he was buried by the family in the Rush Springs Cemetery.
You would think this might be the end of the story, but it’s not. While doing this research I found one last, sad notation in the records.
Lizzie and John had a total of eleven children before Lizzie’s untimely death at the age of 35. Of these eleven children, they lost five as infants or toddlers. These poor babies are buried far from their mother and father, in places where the Burt family wandered during the early years of the 20th century. One is in western Oklahoma, one in Holly, Colorado, and two are in Harrah, Oklahoma.
Only one of John and Lizzie’s babies lies in the Rush Springs Cemetery. Vita Rae Burt was born in 1917 and died in 1918, only a year before Lizzie herself succumbed to gall stones and died. I am as sure as I can be that John would have buried Lizzie next to her little lost daughter. John Oscar never remarried, but did continue his wandering and is buried in Oregon.
After all of this research, I’m pretty certain that these are the members of the Burt clan who lie in repose at Rush Springs…
Lizzie Viola (Summey) Burt and her daughter Vita Rae Burt, Stephen Evan Burt, his wife Minerva (Summers) Burt, their daughters Valley and Lula Burt, and finally, Stephen’s mother, Sarah Ann (Calfee) Burt Coffman and her second husband, David Crockett Coffman.
All of this makes me wish I had asked my Grandpa more questions when he was here. Then again, I suppose it doesn’t really matter in the big scheme of things. We all live, and we all die. I suppose it’s more important that we try to live a meaningful life in obscurity, then simply vanish, than to settle for living in mediocrity, but be guaranteed a marked grave to lie in.
Having said that, I’d personally rather have it both ways… a great life, and a marked resting place to declare to those who follow that I was here.
Which, I guess, is probably why I want to mark the graves of my people when I find them unmarked and forgotten; I want them to be remembered too.
smburns 