True, Faithful, Honest

Qualities we all think we have but sometimes it takes a while for them to appear.

I noticed the grave marker for William Ernest Foreman and his wife Lillier Bethany Jane Lundy Foreman in the Palma Sola Cemetery in Bradenton, Florida was almost identical to that of their daughter who died half a century later.

I have a double connection to the family. William Foreman was the first cousin of my great grandmother Sallie Adams Fulford and his wife was the first cousin of my great grandmother Ida Lundy Wilson.

William Foreman was born in Carteret County North Carolina in 1870 and moved to Manatee County Florida with his father in the 1880s. They were one of the first settlers on Perico Island and the first family from Carteret County to move to Manatee County.

William was a fisherman who eventually moved to Sarasota and died in his fishing boat in Roberts Bay, near downtown Sarasota, Florida in 1927. He was buried in the Palma Sola Cemetery in a plot next to his parents. His grave marker has a design with a fence and the gate opening to a star.

In cemetery speak, that symbolizes going from Earth to Heaven and the Star is the one that was seen over Bethlehem. William's wife was born in Taylor County Florida in 1875 and when she died in 1945 was buried next to him. Her parents were Mathew Washington Lundy and Susan Salinda Head Lundy.

When their daughter Josephine's husband died in 1955 the marker she bought for his grave nearby had the same shape as her parent's with the same fence and star but she added the words "True, Faithful, Honest."

Laura Josephine Foreman was born in 1892 on Perico Island and married William Downs Thomas in 1917. He was born in 1887 in Carmi, Illinois but moved to Florida as a teenager and enlisted in the Army  from Bradenton during WWI. He and Josephine owned a grocery store in Samoset, Florida.

William died in 1955 and Josephine died in 1977. A Lundy cousin in Perry, Florida sent me this photo of them.

William and Josephine Thomas

Preaching to the Enemy

Thomas Mann was the brother of my gg grandmother Sarah Mann Adams. He was born September 4, 1811 and lived in what is now Newport, North Carolina. At the time it was called Shepherdsville, which is an appropriate name for his story. He was listed as a Farmer and Turpentine Maker on the census records but made his reputation by being a Preacher.

In fact during the Civil War he preached to the Union troops who were occupying Carteret County and the locals didn't like that at all. He was taken prisoner by Confederate troops who thought he shouldn't be preaching to the enemy.

The Union troops retaliated, taking several hostages until Thomas Mann was released. He died sometime before 1870 and this memorial plaque was later placed in Cedar Grove Cemetery in Newport.