Rootseekers press release
Rootseekers President Margaret Ann Trail had to think fast when she had to fill in for Gaylon Patterson who had an emergency trip to the hospital. Gaylon was to be the speaker at the genealogical society meeting at Tri-County Library on March 18th.
She decided to tell the club about Oakwood Cemetery in Austin where one of her great-great-grandfathers is buried. This old cemetery is as old as Austin itself. It was established in 1839 the year Austin was established and named by an act of Congress of the Republic of Texas. Oakwood Cemetery is older by almost two years than the oldest surviving structure in Austin. Set originally outside of the town site it is now in the heart of Austin. Oakwood is now a repository of stories as old and as diverse as Austin itself.
The story of Oakwood Cemetery is greater than the sum of the tales of its 23,000 individual residents. The monuments in Oakwood Cemetery tell a story of their own in the way different eras marked and commemorated ancestors of the city, and in some prominent cases how individuals wanted succeeding generations throughout time to think of them.
Truly cemeteries are people places—places for the living as much as for the dead. Cemeteries are repositories of family, of history, of cultural interest, of memory, of space for reflection, and of the values of society.
R.E. Stromberg and his wife Adelina both immigrated to Austin in 1870 from Sweden and were married in Austin. In Sweden, he was licensed as a druggist. in Austin, he worked as a prescription clerk for Dauffau, Thompson, Cousins, Fox, and Tobin druggists. He was also a farmer. He moved to Swede Hill in 1889 and lived there until his death. He was a member of the organizational committee of Gethsemane Lutheran Church. Four of his children and a granddaughter are buried in the Stromberg family lot.
Margaret Ann Trail was born in Texas, raised in Iowa, and has lived in 12 states from Massachusetts to California. She is married to Newt Trail, a Kaufman County native. She retired from Aetna and her passion is gardening and her hobby is beekeeping, and she keeps a flock of laying hens.
Members remember the Rootseekers garage sale Saturday May 7, at the Baywood Estates Pavilion beginning 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. If it rains it will be the following Saturday May 14. Check the Monitor newspaper for our ad and for directions to Baywood.