Bucklin Burials

Gravesite service of Louis Charles Bucklin in 1927.

I’m not sure when I first saw this first photo.  I must have gotten it from my cousin Joseph a few years ago.  He and his mom Louise (my mom’s first cousin) had been collecting Bucklin family photos for a few years and were sharing them with me.  They were all new to me, so it was exciting to see all of these old family treasures.

This one was not identified, but we assumed it was at the gravesite of my mom’s paternal grandfather Louis Charles Bucklin in 1927.  My mom was born in 1933, so she never knew her paternal grandfather.  (My father’s paternal grandfather died before he was born, too.)  Lou was born April 11, 1873, in Masonville, Iowa.  He died in Elton, Louisiana, on Nov. 19, 1927.  He was buried in nearby Raymond, Louisiana, which was where his father James A. Bucklin was buried in 1890.

You can see Lou’s wife Addie in the front and middle of this photo all dressed in black.  Her husband had died at the age of 54, and she was only 51.  The youngest two children of her eleven living children were only 12 years old.  Though you can’t see her face, her sadness is unmistakable.   That is what made it likely that this photo was from Lou’s burial. 

She was surrounded by her children at the gravesite.  The young man on the left who is looking down is either her son Fred or his identical twin Clarence.  I think the young boy behind him is her youngest son Roy.  Next to him is older son Ralph.  It’s likely that the oldest son Leo is the man standing between Ralph and Addie.  Ruth is the youngest daughter to the right  of Addie.  Behind her (and looking down) is son Herbert, then Robert (I think), Fred/Clarence, and possibly Carl. 

Burial for James A. Bucklin

I went to visit that graveyard in 2015.  It was my last outing I had with my mom and my dad.  The graveyard is called Raymond Cemetery and it is just down the road from the Raymond Methodist Church where the family were members.  It originally was called Fairview Cemetery. 

One of the first graves I noticed was this one that has BUCKLIN written in white that is so easy to ready.  This is the burial place of my great great grandfather James A. Bucklin.  The monument is very nice looking, but it looked like something was missing.  I was informed that there is a pillar that used to sit atop this pedestal.  The pillar would fall over and cause problems for the caretakers when they mowed the property.  So family members placed it in the old garage of a family member. 

Newly acquired photo of James A. Bucklin’s grave.

Fast-forward to this summer.  As I’ve told you in previous posts, I was able to scan several old Bucklin family photos from my mom’s cousin Carla.  And even though one of the photos was a photo of a gravesite, I was excited to see it.  I knew immediately that I needed to compare it to the first photo that I posted.  The word “League” looked familiar.

When I only had that first photo, I examined it to see if there were any clues to the location of the grave.  If you look closely on the left of that first photo, you can see the word “League” on that photo as well.  So the photos were taken at the same event. And this new photo identified the event as the burial of Louis Charles Bucklin.

The other interesting thing about this second photo is what you can see on the left of the photo.  You can see that easy-to-read BUCKLIN name on James Bucklin’s grave.  But more importantly, the pillar is sitting atop the pedestal as it was placed 37 years earlier!  I had wondered what it looked like, and now I know.

Louis Bucklin headstone in Raymond Cemetery