Rock solid....

I guess when we get older and our family gets smaller we find the need to search back and find a place where we find solid ground.  This was my second visit to Bakers Summit PA, a very small village in the southern reaches of Morrison Cove in the southwest part of the state.  And this is the church my great-grandmother Holsinger's family founded.  My dad never talked much about his family.  His father and his uncle moved to Illinois from Kansas in the late 1800's.  All I have are some pictures of them.  Try to guess what your grandparents are like from a small photo from the 30's?  Very hard to do.

And so I just scrape up bits of information here and there.  The last time I was in the churchyard was a Sunday morning a few years ago.  I could hear the congregation singing one of my favorite hymns.  I was not drawn to go in and join them.  I just wanted to wander the graveyard, looking for familiar names.  

This year we arrived on a weekday.  There was no one around.  The church door was open so I went in.  What lovely little country church it was.  Smiling to myself, I could imagine the many families who worshiped here every week.  Comfort in a rock solid faith.

I next turned my attention to the cemetery.  I wandered from north to south, searching for Myers, Miller, Holsinger.  I found a few but I didn't identify any of them.  Until I came to a small stone engraved with these names and dates...Catharine Dallas, 1839-1916.  James A. Dallas, 1854-1916.  This was where my great-grandmother Catharine Holsinger Myers Dallas and her second husband James were laid to rest.  Rock solid.  Here where she belonged, among her family and friends.

Tears came to my eyes.  And part of my family longing found a place to rest...here among the fertile fields and tall mountains framing this rock solid place my family called home.