THE WISELEY CEMETERY

Visiting Relatives I never got to meet

A tranquel setting for a small cemetery in Ohio

       Allan and Mary Wiseley owned a farm not too far from where this picture was taken.  They spent most of their lives working that farm, but for the last 131 years his address has been Wiseley Cemetery, Kohler Rd, Wapakoneta, Ohio.  He died Jan 1881 and a few years later (Aug 89) Mary joined him.  

Here are the twin headstones of Mary (left) and Allen. 
The arch that once joined the two stones is on the ground at the base of the headstones.        

Technically the cemetery is named "The Kuntz-Wiseley" cemetery, but I could not locate anyone named Kuntz that was buried here and of the 19 names listed 15 are Wiseleys. So the official cemetery name assigning people can call it what they want, I will think of it as the Wiseley cemetery. So did the ladies who read all the tombstones in 1985.

       This pleasant rural setting is just a couple miles west of Wapakoneta. (Wapa'-ka-net-a - not Wapa-ka-neeeta...or just call it Wapa like the locals do)  It is easy to find. Go west of Wapa until on the outskirts you see Greenlawn cemetery.  A couple hundred yards beyond that is a bridge over 33 (an expressway)  where you can find Kohler road just to the southwest of the bridge.  A couple miles south on Kohler will bring you to two small 1/2 acre cemeteries. The one on the left is the Wiseley cemetery. The other one has headstones written in German.
        Who is buried here? A list was compiled in 1985.

      

And now some pictures of headstones.  The full text that could still be read is recorded above. You may want to come back here as you try to read some of the stones.

View of Wiseley cemetery taken from the other (German) cemetery. 

            A closer view of the Wiseley cemetery looking south-east.

 Looking north. My car is parked in front of the other cemetery. 

Looking south at the same row of tombstones.  Above is the 2nd row . Look at the right side of the picture by the base of a tree and you will see a squarish block of stone. That is almost all that is left of the 1st row. If you look closely you can see a single stone in the 3rd row. It shows up better in the next picture. Notice to the left of this row is an empty slope of grass.

Looking at Mary and Allen's headstones with the nearly empty grass area behind them.  You can see the remains of the 3rd row in the background. 


Here is about all that is left of the third row. As I walked this cemetery thoughts of how many unknown Wiseleys were buried here filled my mind. They had families, joys and trials and as early pioneers here would have had such wonderful stories.  Feelings of nostalga makes me wish I had been able to talk with them and find out more about who they were, what they did and what their life was all about.




 A better view of the "empty" grass area behind the row of stones pictured earlier.  As I walked this ground I discovered it is not empty. Pieces of stone were partially visible through the grass, as shown below.

     There was no way to read anything on the exposed parts of this stone. Who knows how many other stones or fragments are buried a few inches below the grass.  A big thank you to the Washington Township people and the who take care of this nearly forgotten cemetery. Also thanks to the ladies and organizations that record the text found on these old stones. 



Some stones were partially buried, like this one. If you look closely you can see the large depression where this stone was half buried before I pulled it out.  Looking at the list of names recorded it appears to be the stone of one of Mary and Allens children "Jenny" Look closely at the photo below and you can almost make out that name in the curved area above where it says she was the dau of A & M Wiseley.







 And we finish our visit to the Wiseley cemetery with some stones that we can still read.

Here is Mary and Allen.

Here is Amos and Emma's daughter Pearl

8 months - 2 days

 

Here is Florence. An earlier daughter of Amos and Emma.  There were lots of Wiseley men named Amos, so which one is this? He was one of the obituaries in the post "12 Obituaries".  And if you read that one, he is the Amos that shot himself. There is much more to that story but it will have to wait for a future post. 

Oh, I nearly forgot, Florence was

2 years, 6 months, 10 days

   

You will need to go back to the listing for this stone. The name is Leroy Leslie.  Brother to Albert.

1 Month -12 days

Here is Albert, son of Henry and Anne Wiseley.

He was only 12.

The next picture is also Albert's headstone. It seems like a good place for us to end our visit to the Wiseley cemetery.

We can only imagine the heart ache of burying children here.  Add to that the loss of close relatives and spouses. This is a place where there have been tears and sorrow, loss and grief.  It is almost beyond our comprehension! 

        I think it is time to scroll down to the next picture and stop and just look at the serenity of this last photo.

Albert - Rest in Peace!

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