Visiting Graves - Help from the Other Side of the Veil

A few weeks ago, I passed through Elizabeth City, North Carolina with my grandparents. We made our annual visit to the graves of a few family members and talked about them, which is always a tender, yet bittersweet time.

This year, we made a change to our schedule. I've wanted for a while to go and visit some graves of my Riddick ancestors. Other than one of my dad's first cousins and her family, we've never been quite close to the Riddick side of the family. I didn't pay much mind to this until my grandpa's unexpected passing in 2013. Since then, I've made a point to try and discover more about that side of the family.

I knew that several of my ancestors, including my second great-grandparents and third great-grandfathers on the Riddick line, were buried at Corinth Baptist Church in Elizabeth City, and I wanted to go and pay my respects.

To my surprise, there was an actual Riddick family plot in the cemetery. 

Marker for the Riddick Family Plot

I was able to find my second great-grandparents in relatively short order. I sat and looked at these graves for a while, wondering what they were like. They both passed away before my grandfather was born, and he never had any stories to share about them. I don't even know what they looked like. Despite the fact that they lived decently well into the twentieth-century - we have no photographs of either of them. 

As a matter of fact, out of my great-grandfather's nine siblings, I've only ever been able to find a picture of one of them, Lillian (I'll come back to her in a moment). Hopefully my efforts in that area will bear fruit someday soon. 

Second-Great Grandparents, Mattie Lillian Riddick and Benjamin Elisha Riddick.

After some effort - the marker wasn't in the plot, but in an older section of the cemetery - I was able to find my third great-grandfather's grave. Elisha Riddick (spelled Redick on the stone). 

I sat down and had a talk with him for a few minutes. I thanked him for the research skills I'd gained while searching for records of his family. I promised that I'd do my best to continue working to discover things about the family, and said a prayer there asking for help in doing it (More on the many issues of investigating the Riddick line in later posts). 

The marker has been damaged and is in bad need of a cleaning. It reads:
ELISHA REDICK
Born March 30th, 1834.
Died June 19th 1899.
Age 65 Years
At Sleep In Jesus 

While leaving the cemetery, I felt prompted to return to the graves of my second great-grandparents. I took a look around and noticed a small marker at the corner of the family plot that I had missed before. 

It was the grave of an unnamed son of my great-great-aunt Lillian Riddick and her husband Richard Perry. Intrigued, I took a picture of the marker. While walking back to the car, I opened up the FamilySearch app on my phone, and checked her entry. There was no son wasn't listed there. As we drove away (I should make the point that I was a passenger doing this, and not driving), I started doing some work on Ancestry.com, and was able to find the child's death certificate fairly quickly.  

Infant son of Mr. and Mrs. W. R. Perry. Born & Died March 13, 1942.

Aunt Lillian and Uncle Bill would have only one more child, a daughter named Billie Maxine. Unfortunately, she fell off the back of a car as a young girl and hit her head. As a result, she was badly brain-damaged and bedridden for the rest of her life, passing away in 1965. 

Baby Boy Perry, as he was listed on the death certificate, was born prematurely on 13 March 1942. He died later the same day. Although he only lived a very short time, not even long enough to be named, they clearly cared for him a great deal.

After seeking permission and going through the proper channels on FamilySearch, I was able to get permission to have him sealed to his parents, which I will be doing very soon.

I know that I didn't encounter this grave by chance. Sometimes the veil is very thin, and members of our family are there to guide us to the information that we need so that their work can be done. Although my passion for genealogy has by no means flagged, I had become discouraged about ever finding out information for certain family lines. This experience has been a breath of fresh air for me, and I find myself filled with new purpose. 

To those reading. Never give up on your genealogy. Do your best to do all you can do. And prepare yourself to be able to follow promptings when they do come. Because they will come.