I’m not sure why he declined being executor of his father’s estate. I’m assuming that it’s because he lived in South Dakota and couldn’t do it from afar.  He left it to his brother, John.

I, George Agee, do herein decline the appointment as one of the executors of my father’s estate, and respectfully asks the court to name only one Executor, namely, John Agee. I further state that I know it to be the desire of all of my brothers and sisters that John Agee be the sole Executor.  Dated at Jefferson, So. Dak. this 9th day of July 1938.

{signed} George S. Agee

Subscribed and sworn to me this 11th day of July, 1938, by George Agee personally known by me to be the same identical person whose signature appears above.

{signed} William Moon, Notary Public

County of Union, State of South Dakota

It is FREE and allows you to upload PDFs and share them in a nice, neat widget. {There is also a premium ad-free version}.

I decided to post a PDF file of my great-great grandfather, Ari Austin Agee as an example.  This is just a simple Legacy-created PDF, so it didn’t take me any time to make.

There are different options available – you call allow them to download the PDF.  You can merge all PDFs together.  You can also change the style and size of the widget.

And this is what I love.  You can actually put a number of different files on a cute little bookshelf like this….

With the free version, you can only add 3 books to a shelf – with 15 page each. There aren’t any restrictions if you subscribe to Flipsnack Premium, but the free version works for my purposes.

There are other services on the site as well, including SlideSnack {for PowerPoint}, PollSnack, TubeSnack, etc.

Have you ever used this service before?

Earlier this year, I drove through Delphos, Iowa and saw what’s left of the old store.  Not much.

Here is the bill.  I find it interesting reading about the different purchases he made in June of 1938, the month he died.

Here is a Google map of the entire town:

View Larger Map

I find it interesting that Sally is the first one listed on the deed, instead of her husband.

I wonder why they decided to sell their land in town.  Ari was a blacksmith and would have been about 68 in 1922. Perhaps he sold the land, because he retired and was passing his shop onto another person.  Just a guess.  In the 1925 and 1930 census, Ari and Sally were still living in Delphos, so it doesn’t look like they moved far.

The only other Agee gravestone I saw nearby was that of their daughter, Eva Agee Lindenmeyer (1879-1958).

Nov 23 – 1934

To whom it may concern I wish all of you to know that I wish my two youngest sons George Agee 3511 – 43rd St Sioux City Iowa and John Agee of Delphos Iowa to be the administrators of my estate. My children that have paid money which I have credited on my book or that holds notes that have not been credited on my book shall be paid and after my other debts have been paid and after my property has been sold the money remaining shall be evenly divided between my eight children signed

Ari Agee

At the request of Ari Agee and in the presence of us we hereby subscribe our names as witnesses to the above instrument.

Dated at Mt. Ayr Iowa, this 28th day of November 1934.

W. T T____  Witness

Jorgsen Dolbey Witness

And here also is the Certificate of Proof of Will:

Delphos is near the town of Mount Ayr, which is the county seat of Ringgold County, Iowa.  Mount Ayr is a small, but quaint town with some neat old buildings.  We ate lunch at a really cool diner, called Peggy Sue’s.

Delphos on the other hand seems to have languished over the years.  It is no longer an incorporated town.  We drove through what used to be the town on our recent trip to Iowa.  It made me sad to see all of the run-down buildings.

My great-great grandparents, Ari Austin and Sally Jane (Lee) Agee lived in Delphos from 1904 till their deaths in 1938 and 1934.

Ari was a blacksmith and they owned a lot in the town, where he had his shop.

When I read through Ari’s probate records, I found bills from the local store – Seaton Store.  And here it stands today.  Obviously no longer a store.  I wonder what it looked like when it was open for business.

This is the Baptist church which they attended.  It didn’t appear to be in use, although I read online that there was a small museum inside, if you called a lady to open it.  If I had more time to spend in town, I would have pursued that.

And here is the other local church next door.  It’s definitely not open.

It makes me so sad to see towns like this – that reached their peak a hundred years ago and have since died out.  It makes you wonder what causes a town to disappear, when other areas are thriving and overpopulated.  Any ideas?

I was later given confirmation of this story, when a distant cousin sent me this picture of Sally Jane (Lee) Agee:

She did indeed only have one arm.  And she quilted!! I think this is especially amazing since I can’t even quilt with two arms – and a sewing machine!

I also had the following information in her 1934 obituary, which I found on my first trip to Mount Ayr, Iowa.  “Twenty-two years ago Mrs. Agee lost her arm in an accident and through all the years has been a constant sufferer.”  So, I knew that she probably lost her arm in about 1912.  Unfortunately, I was short on time and couldn’t search for it.

That was years ago and I’ve been wondering about the accident this whole time.  This past week, I talked my husband into taking a day trip up to Mount Ayr again.  This time, I was completely prepared to read through the entire year’s worth of newspaper (or more) to find out what happened.  Thankfully, I only had to read through half the year, because I found this in June 1912 in the Mount Ayr Record-News:

“Mrs. A. Agee, of Delphos, who with her daughter Viva and son John, were going to visit her daughter, Mrs. Guy Fisher, south of Delphos Friday afternoon.  When going down a hill the shaft came down, caught in the ground and overturned the buggy.  The occupants were thrown out and Mrs. Agee’s arm was broken above the elbow in such a way that the doctors were unable to set it.  She was taken to the hospital in St. Joseph Saturday morning where the arm was amputated.  Mrs. Agee underwent the operation nicely and at last report she was getting along as well as could be expected.”

I was so happy to finally have some of my questions answered.  I hadn’t realized that her daughter Viva (my great-grandmother) was in the buggy with her.

It must have been a horrific thing to have happened to her.  They transported her to St. Joseph, MO – which is about 100 miles away.  And in the days before airlifting people by helicopter, that was a long ways to go.

She seems to have recovered from her trauma soon enough, because just a couple of months later, I found newspaper tidbits, saying that she was out visiting people.

I had considered video taping our walk, but for some reason I had visions of it becoming a Blair-Witch type movie and decided against it.  I obviously watch too many movies.

I really don’t have an irrational fear of the woods.  I grew up on an island in the Puget Sound, surrounded by nothing but trees.  It was the “No Trespassing” signs nearby and the fact that I was possibly doing just that, that had me freaked out.  Oh, and the lack of cell phone coverage.

Think happy thoughts.  Think happy thoughts. Think happy thoughts.

The happy thoughts worked.

As we turned a corner and looked up the hill, we saw it.

There, in the middle of the woods. almost half a mile down an unmarked path, was a well-maintained, fenced cemetery.

There was a nice wooden sign.

And a new stone with their last name on it.

And flowers on the graves.

This was obviously lovingly maintained by living relatives.  I was amazed.

But the biggest surprise to me was that there was more than the four graves I had been told about.

I was expecting to find my great-great-great grandparents, Austin and Eliza Jane (Hensley) Agee. And I did.

I knew that their son Jesse and his wife Iowa were also buried there.

But that was it. I had never heard mention of any others.

What I didn’t expect was the grave of Austin and Jesse’s father (my 4th great-grandfather) John Agee, Jr.  He had a newly engraved stone.  (Which poses the question – Who placed it there and how are they sure that it is him?)

There were also a few old rocks used as headstones and footstones to unmarked graves.

Could the one next to John be his wife, Sena Hilton?  Possibly.

I don’t know who the others might belong to.  Here is one of them.  I wonder if it once said something.

An There was one other marked grave in the cemetery.  I will have to find out who she was.  Possibly one of Jesse’s daughters.

I wanted to mention that I found the positioning of the stones kind of odd..  Don’t you think this is an awkward way to place them? They are actually facing each other.

So, as always, answers lead to more questions.  But I like it that way.

Here is the view as we left the cemetery. It is truly in the woods.

And I’m so glad that I didn’t chicken out and pass the trail up for another day. A dry and sunny day.  A day that I had my husband and a gun with me.  But I have to admit that I heaved a great sigh of relief when we rounded the corner and could see our vehicle again.

If you’re ever in the Woolwine area and are looking for the Agee Cemetery, contact me and I will give you some very specific directions!!!  It’s really there, even though there isn’t a sign.

This story actually begins almost exactly a year ago.

My entire family was squeezed into our overflowing 15-passenger van, on a 30-day trip from North Pole, Alaska to Savannah, Georgia. Besides making them stop at every National Park and battlefield on the 9,000 miles of our trip, I also made quite a few detours to do research at courthouses and cemeteries.

One of the cemeteries I wanted to find was the “Agee Cemetery”, in Woolwine, Virginia. The area is just a couple of miles off the Blue Ridge Parkway and from what I had been told, there were four gravestones down a trail off the side of the highway.

The road was windy and the forest thick.

I had a very vague idea of where the cemetery was located.

I didn’t need to do a lot of prior planning though, because I had my new wonder-toy, the iPhone in hand. It had a GPS, internet access, maps, and the email with the directions to the cemetery. What more could I need??

What I didn’t take into account was the fact that my iPhone wouldn’t have any signal or internet access in the mountains of Virginia. We were driving blind.  And I learned my lesson.

After going back and forth down “the Crooked Road” several times (it’s really called that – here’s the sign to prove it!),

stopping at some poor unsuspecting man’s house to ask for directions, and driving down a very narrow dirt road with signs saying “No Trespassing” “Private Property” and “Trespassers Will Be Shot”, we threw in the towel and headed down the Blue Ridge Parkway further to the Biltmore for some sightseeing.

Over this past year, the fact that I wasn’t able to find that cemetery had been nagging at me. I really wanted to find them.

After taking off from the NGS Conference in Charleston, I decided that I’d make a stop in Virginia. Because Virginia is on the way to Kansas, right?

This time around, I was armed with much more specific directions. I was also in a small SUV instead of a 15-passenger van. A little bit easier to maneuver around.

We still had a few things going against us though.

• It was Sunday morning and there weren’t very many people around (I did have the idea to stop by the local church to ask someone about the cemetery, but the parking lot was empty.  Hmm)
• Even though I had more specific directions, I still didn’t know exactly where I was going.
• It was POURING down rain and the graves were 3/8 of a mile off the road.  And I didn’t have an umbrella.  And there wasn’t a store in town.  See the rain, just waiting in those clouds??

But did I let any of this get me down?  Of course not!  I had gone out of my way to drive to this county and I wasn’t going to give up that easily.  I’m from Washington state anyway.  A little rain wasn’t going to discourage me.

My first stop (after passing the empty church parking lot) was the busiest place in town – the gas station/hang-out.  There, I asked the resident old-guy-on-a-bench if he knew where I could find the cemetery.  I am honestly not quite sure what he said to me.  His accent was so thick and he had so many teeth missing that I couldn’t understand.  I nodded a couple of times, thanked him, and tried to follow the directions I already had.

I found the small shoulder, where I was supposed to pull over on the side of the road.

I could see a bit of footbridge (which was mentioned in the directions).  I knew that I was on the right track.  Just at that moment, a pick-up truck pulled out of the nearby road.  I flagged it down and asked the man driving if he knew if there were some graves back there and if whoever owned the land would mind if I went back to take some pictures of them. He said that I should go down the road (which he had pulled out of) and turn into the first driveway.  The graves were near this man’s house.  Great! (or so I thought).

As I drove down the one-lane dirt road, I realized that it looked familiar.  And when I stopped at the first driveway, I found out why.  This was where all of the “No Trespassing” were!  I couldn’t decide what to do.

Just then, a nice older lady was passing by and I asked her if she knew who lived there.  She said that she thought that he was home and I should go and ask him about the graves.  I decided to gather the courage and go ring this man’s doorbell.

So, I turned the corner of the driveway (I couldn’t see the house before) and was faced with the fact that this man didn’t have a doorbell.  Or even a proper door for that matter.  What to do?  I got about 25 feet from the shack and yelled “hello” about 6 or 7 times and then hightailed it back to my truck when no one answered.  As I was pulling out of the driveway, I noticed that the outbuilding/barn that was there looked like it could have been standing when my ancestors lived in the area (over 100 years before).  I was tempted to take a picture of it, but my good manners kept me from doing it.

So, back to the side of the road where I started out.  The rain had stopped and I decided it was now or never.  Armed with my camera and my cell phone (which of course didn’t work, but for some strange reason it still made me feel better to have it), Ellie and started walking down the pathway.

We crossed the footbridge and the path quickly turned into an ATV trail.

A very muddy ATV trail.

But we weren’t giving up, right?

Except for one very un-cool moment, where I almost slipped and covered myself in this,

we made it up the path unscathed.  A little muddy, but no gunshots.

And that’s when we saw it.  It definitely wasn’t what I expected to find.

But you’ll have to wait until next Tombstone Tuesday to see what was down the long muddy path.

Would you have ventured down it?

After his death in 1890, his wife Eliza applied for and received a widow’s pension.

I was so excited to receive this packet a number of years ago. Up until that point, I had assumed that those who served under the Confederacy didn’t receive pensions.  This was only a few pages long, so nothing compared to the Union pension packets, but it is full of very helpful, important information.

Here are the scanned images of what I have.

These are my great-grandparents, Alfred LeRoy Edwards and Viva Lena Agee.  I never met Alfred, but I remember visiting Viva in a nursing home when I was a child.  I wish that I had more memories of her than that.