This story is part personal and part historical. Jim and Susie Ivey, who are from the Amery area, are very interested in genealogy and history and for the most part, these two interests go hand in hand to create this story. The story begins in 2011, while Jim was trying to document Susie’s 3 times great grandfather Isaac Palmer. From census records Jim knew that he was last found in Kentucky. Jim has been a avid genealogist and a volunteer for Find-A-Grave for many years. He happened on a new memorial listing on their website for Isaac and Ann Palmer. It had information on the location of the Cemetery where they were buried. So, with those directions in hand we set off to find the graves. We are snowbirds so we just happen to go through Kentucky two times a year on our way from our Wisconsin home to our Florida home. So in the fall of 2011 we took the directions and tried to find the cemetary. We drove around a rural area south of Hopkinsville, KY for a few hours and found nothing. We stopped at a local farmer’s home to see if he could help. After a smile, he asked if we had any idea as to how many private cemeteries were in that part of the country. Most of the farms in the area had one. He also said that it was likely that over the past hundred and fifty years, many of those cemeteries may have been plowed under. So we came to terms with the fact that we might not ever find the graves. So we gave up looking for that trip and continued on to Florida.
Jim could not get this out of his mind and would not give up. Why would someone have created a memorial for someone if there was not a cemetery? He made contact with the person that created Isaac and Ann Palmer’s memorial on the Find-a-Grave web site trying to get additional help. As it turned out the information that he used to create the memorial, came from a book that he got from the local library. In the fall of 2014, he searched to find a local historian to help us find the cemetery. He made several inquiries to local Genealogical groups, Museums and Historical groups in hopes of finding someone who was interested in our story and agree to help. After a number of calls, he came in touch with Jean Clark, a volunteer at one of the historical societies who was born and raised in the area and was very excited to offer help. In the spring of 2015 Jim received a call from Jean Clark who said that she had found the cemetery and on our return trip to Wisconsin, we stopped in Kentucky again and this time, with Jean’s help, we were able to locate the cemetery. The cemetery was on private land on a 600 acre cattle ranch. Turned out at one time there was a small Baptist church located on the property. We located the stones in a wooded area of a cattle pasture. There were about 35 graves sites in this cemetery and most of the stones were broken and buried on the ground. When we located the Palmer stones, they were in very good condition considering they had been there since 1843. This was a very exciting discovery for us and a very historical find for the state of Kentucky, and the Country. We took photos of the stones and Jim posted them on the Find-a-Grave web site memorial.
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