Art & Kathy's vacation diary

Hi Gene, We spent part of our vacation in lake township with dead relatives. Will send more pictures and letter to explain each picture. (Joseph T. Kemper's stone) not Marry Janes father. Art & Kathy ------ Stone (M) is Mary Jane Kemper wife of Jacob Cooper. ------ The picture of the House Letter (O) is Jacob & Mary Jane's Home. Let us know if you got all 5 pages of pictures. Will write letter explaining everything tomorrow. Art & Kathy ------ ********* 08/13/02 Hi Gene Where to start? Let's start with what we did not find. Jacob Cooper's death cert or grave. Michael & Elizabeth Rhodes death cert or graves. Barbara Rhodes death cert or grave, no surprise because family talk says she is buried up here somewhere. Michael and Elizabeth Rhodes [Barbara's parent] lived very close to the Walbash Co line. Maybe records are in Walbash Co. Art and I think where we find the Rhodes we will find Jacob. Young girl [Barbara] has her old husband die [Jacob] she buries him with her family. Also one of the pioneer families of Lake twp. Kosciuslo Co. was Rhoades spelled with an A. Our spelling is Rhodes. We did find a Levi Rhodes [Barbara's brother] in the Silver Lake cem. Some where back in time there may be a connection of the two family spellings but not in Lake twp. Art and Kathy Now where did we look. County court house Warsaw Kosciusko Co In. deaths, births, land records county building [across the street] marriage records. Kosciusko Co. In. Historical Soc. cemetery records, newspaper records Kosciusko Co. Public Liberay newspaper records, census Silver Lake Cem Center Cem Everetts Farm cem Gospel Hill cem Claypool cem Mt Pleasent cem At the assessor's office we bought a large map of Kosciusko Co. It shows townships, cemeteries, and township sections. The accessor's office took us to the "attic" [said "attic" on the elevator.] Dust, brickwalls, cement floors, iron stairs to the dome. And lots of old land records. That's how we found Jacob and Mary's house. The other 2 corn field pictures [R] land owned by Michael Rhodes and [Q] 2 acres owned by Barbara Rhodes Cooper 1891-1895 era. The 2 acres are land bound. Back by the trees. We couldn't walk back to see if there was any old foundation on the property. The 2 acres were not adjacent to the property that we know was owned by Michael Rhodes, but was very close. Michael may have owned other properties like one with a house on it. I'm going to send this in sections to you because I had this almost done and lost it. Kathy ----------- Jacob's land has a house that has been sided,but looks like the orginal building. And the only house around for maybe 1/4 mile. The address is 1842 E 1000S. Silver Lake. The parcel of land is on the corner of 1000S and Packerton rd. Packerton Rd. cuts through the corn field you see in the back ground [O]. The house didn't sit right on the corner. There was no sign of an old barn. You can see where a wind mill once was. Picture [P] is downtown Silver Lake. Taken from in front of the post office. Red brick building is a lovely antique store. Pictures I-J-H-G-E-F are Swick and Snoke that we just ran across and thought maybe would be of use to you someday. A puzzle piece that dosn't fit yet. If you can't read a name or date let us know. Picture [k] should be of intrest to Angele. The stone says, what we can make out: -UDORA wife of S Cooper May 13 18-- April -- ---- This stone was found in Center cem Lake twp. Just north of Silver Lake of Rd 950S. Most likely S Cooper was Solomon and this is his 2 wife Eudora. Angele's grandmother. Also in Center Cem were stones [C] & [D] Mary wife of John Snoke B May 16 1-0- D. July 30 1-7- Age 73 yrs. 2 months 11 days. John Snoke D. May 1 1-71 In Silver Lake cem in Silver Lake: Stone [B} the one I sent you when we were trying to figure out our computer says: Joseph T Kemper Jan 13 1888 aged 37 yrs. 2mo 3days. He could have been a younger brother to Mary Jane or a nephew. Stone [A] Must be Joseph T's son. It says William R. son of J.T. & M. Kemper Died Dec 10 1899 aged 17yr 7m 3Ds Kosciusko Co. death records list William as William Roy Kemper Male-White-17-died 10 Dec 1899 Silver Lake Lake twp. *************** Date: 8/14/02 Hi Gene Now I save the best for last. In Silver Lake cem. we found George Flenar 1850-1930 & Rebecca Flenar 1859-1895. The old grave stones had been broken off and these metal plaques had been put on the old foundations. Under the dates it says "E E Summe Funeral Home". This must be our Rebecca Cooper, daughter of Jacob and Mary Jane. A lot of the stones have been damaged or are now unreadable. Many all over the township like the Flenars have been replaced. We had been to Silver Lake Cem. and had gone back to Warsaw to the historcial soc. Art was looking through all the county township cemetery records. In the book for Lake twp. here was a listing for Mary Jane Cooper. Right beside George and Rebecca Flenar. So back to Silver Lake Cem we went. Picture [M] unless you knew what the stone said it would be hard to make out any of the words. Mary Jane wife of Jacob Cooper Died 14 Jul 1880 The rest of the wording is lost. As you can see it is broken off. All broken stones have been placed face up so people can still read them. We spent 2 days in Silver Lake. It was fun and only 3 hours away.
	M - Mary Jane Cooper	O - Jacob & Mary's house
	Snoke	Snoke
	Q - Barbara Cooper land	R - Michael Rhodes land
	E	F
	G	H
	I	J
	P	K - Eudora Cooper
	B	A
	George Flenar	Rebecca Flenar
	M - Mary Jane Cooper