Tombstone Tuesday - All Saints Braddock Catholic Cemetery

After a long absence, I finally reappear :) The good news is that a) I finally made a trip to the cemetery and b) I've been working hard on my NIGS classes. There will be several posts about the latter in the coming days.

I have to make another trip to All Saints soon. I went to a funeral there a few years ago, but I didn't realize that the cemetery was so huge! I went last Friday afternoon, since it was the only day that weekend it was not supposed to rain all day. Turns out, it started raining earlier than I thought, cutting my trip short. Another factor was the fact that the groundskeepers had just cut the grass, and it seems that I've recently developed some allergies. Fun. On the upside, I found out that my new phone's GPS marks the location that a picture was taken, to the point that I know exactly where these graves are now in the cemetery. I am continually amazed by technology.

Logistics aside, I did get a few photos of my ancestor's graves, including this one:

When I made the Surname Saturday post about my branch of the DiBernardos, I wrote at length about Giovanni (John) DiBernardo, my great-grandfather. This is his grave, along with his second wife's (Raffeala's), my great-grandmother.

John has become what I recently learned is called a "pet ancestor." I feel a connection to him especially for some reason. I think it may be because he is the first of that family to immigrate to the United States, and he played a part in establishing an Italian immigrant community in Braddock. It's amazing to me, how hard it must have been to do that. To start over in a new place, to make a strange place seem familiar, all while working hard to support a family.

Edit, 5/26/2010: On top of Raffeala's grave, there's another. My grandmother's first child, Josephine, died the day she was born in 1955. She is buried here, with my grandmother's mother. I wish I could have known her.