The Salem Orientalist Society

Not long after my mom and dad got married in 1978, they went out from Maryland (where they were living and where my mom grew up) to visit my Dad's family in Utah. My dad's father was a photographer who specialized in restoring old photographs, so my mom's mother sent her with a photo of some of her relatives that was taken in c. 1880. They went to Summit (down by Parowan) where my dad's mother had grown up so he could visit his grandfather and grandmother, who were in their 90s by that time. They lived in a house that had been built by his father in the 1860s, and there was all kinds of interesting old stuff around that they wanted my dad to go through while he was there and see if there was anything he wanted. While he was up in one of the bedrooms upstairs that no one used, he opened a drawer in an old cabinet, and there sitting right on top of a pile of papers was the exact same photograph that my mom's mother had sent with her to have restored. Neither of my dad's grandparents or any of their relatives who still lived in Summit had any idea who the picture was of, and nobody still has any idea how that photo got to be there. Apparently, though, some of my mom's ancestors and my dad's ancestors knew each other at one point, and the only way I can explain this story is that one of them wanted my parents to know that.

Here's some pictures of old cemeteries I took this past year:

Gunston Hall, VA




















Camp Floyd, UT



















Newnan, GA




















Cade's Cove, TN




























Spartanburg, SC