As I read Melody Lasalle’s blog post Do Our Ancestors Send Us Signs?, I was reminded how often I hear these types of stories from other family historians. In fact, I have a story of my own. And this story took place quite a long time ago. Almost 40 years!

It’s time to finally get this story down in writing.

August 1980 Trip to Montana

My Mom and I were visiting her childhood home of Helena, Montana. It’s a trek we’ve made many times over the year. Most often in August. Her favorite time to visit. Which has turned out to be my favorite time to visit, too. The weather is usually at its best there in August.

One morning we decided to visit Benton Avenue Cemetery with my Mom’s sister. For some reason, we hadn’t visited that cemetery in a few years. And my Mom and Aunt were having a difficult time finding the graves of their grandfather David Lyman Blacker and his daughter Lelia Nina.

Mr. Blacker and his daughter

Lelia Nina died in 1880, during the time the family lived in nearby Radersburg. She was originally buried in the cemetery there but when the family moved to Helena in about 1883, she was reinterred in the new cemetery on Benton Avenue. Later, when her father died in 1911, he was buried right next to her.

As far as we know, David Lyman Blacker never had a gravemarker but Lelia Nina had one, so we were hopeful we could find the graves that day. We knew generally where they were located but the tall grass that summer made it impossible to locate them.

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A little research

We finally gave up the search and decided to move on to our next stop, the research library at the Montana Historical Society. As I recall, we had no specific goal in mind. We were just hoping to find anything on the Blacker family.

Our first discovery was quite a good one. It was a map of Benton Avenue Cemetery, created in the 1960s, that showed the locations of all the graves, along with a list of the names of the people interred there . . . including my great grandfather and his daughter. Before running out the door to head back to the cemetery, we decided to spend a few more minutes to see what else we might find.

Flipping through the card catalog, we came across a reference to an old newspaper clipping regarding the death of the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David Blacker of Radersburg. I jotted down the date of the article on a small slip of paper and handed it to the clerk behind the counter. She headed off to pull the file and returned a few minutes later looking a bit confused.

“The date you gave me is today’s date,” she said. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I replied. “I’ll go back and get the correct date.”

I headed back to the card catalog, pulled the information, and that’s when I realized that the date of the article was August 11, 1880. And the date we were at the library was August 11, 1980, exactly 100 years to the day from when the article was originally published.

As you might imagine, the three of us were a bit bemused . . . and a little bit shocked. I remember my Aunt, standing just behind me, quickly looked for a chair so she could sit and soak it in.

Back to the cemetery

After a few minutes, we headed out the door and back over to the cemetery where we easily located both graves.

The pictures below were taken several years later, after my Mom and Aunt purchased a grave marker for their grandfather.

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Well . . .

I don’t know if our ancestors send us signs. But on that summer day . . . August 11, 1980 . . . we certainly felt that Lelia Nina was trying to get our attention!