Sentimental Sunday - Visiting the grave of Andrew Richardson

It was a three-hour drive to get to Pine Grove Cemetery in Palaside, Aitkin, Minnesota. Well, first of course, it was a eight hours flight over the Atlantic to New York and then a couple of hours flight from New York to Minneapolis... but then it was only a three-hour drive..

I have finally been able to follow my great grand uncle Anders Nilsson Rickard Holmer or Andrew Richardson as he was known as in the US.

Earlier this year I got an invitation to a family reunion that would take place in July this summer in Minnesota. Besides from the reunion there were two things on my must-do list:

1. Visit Ellis Island in New York
2. Find the grave of my great granduncle Andrew Richardson in Paliside.

I know he was buried at Pine Grove Cemetery in Paliside in Aitkin County according to his death certificate and his obituary.

I wanted to be as prepared as possible, driving to that cemetery and not finding the grave... heh.. I can't even describe how I would have felt... So, I contacted the Aitkin County Historical Society asking if they had a map of the cemetery and perhaps knew where his grave was. I got a map in return, and an exact location, Section 0, Lot -10, Site -1. And the information that there wasn't any headstone. So, I would be looking for a marker, good to know. Going there and looking for a headstone with his name, I would never had found anything.

Coming there on July 17, it was a warm, sunny day. The last couple of miles to get to the cemetery was on a grovel road. The cemetery was quite small but nice. And plenty of mosquitoes. It took a while to find the marker. No headstone of course, but where his headstone should have been there is a tall pine tree.. There were a couple of white tree crosses without any names with Veteran markers close but none of them would be at what I figured would be Section 0, Lot -10 and Site -1. Really, there should have been a Veteranmarker at Andrew as well since he was a Spanish-American war veteran.

Andrew Richardson
aka
Anders Nilsson Rickard Holmer
born in Vinslöv, Sweden,
January 26, 1858
died in Palaside, USA
August 1, 1928

With that visit, I now have followed up on all the Rickard-siblings. Karna, my great great-grandmother in Farstorp in Sweden, her siblings Anna, Ellen and Nels in Swanville, Minnesota and finally their brother Andrew in Palaside, Minnesota.

Pine Grove Cemetery, Palisade, Aitkin, Minnesota, USA

Other posts on Andrew Richardson:
http://cousinlinda.blogspot.se/2013/01/children-of-sven-peter-rickard-part-2.html
http://cousinlinda.blogspot.se/2012/04/my-andrew-richardson-in-spanish.html