Leaving the bridge and cutting across the grass to the northwest, we find the grave of Frank Clair, a man who never lived in Rensselaer and who is notable for his success as a coach in the Canadian Football League. Why is he buried in Weston Cemetery? It is because of marriage; his wife and her family were from Rensselaer. He, his wife, and daughter are all buried in Section P Lot 16 Space 6.
Section T has single lots to the south and family lots to the north. The Lunghi marker signals the change. It is noticeable because it is relatively large and the name seems strange for the cemetery. Nello "Joe" Lunghi was born in Italy and came to the U.S. with his parents. One of Lunghi’s claims to fame is that he knew Mussolini. He met him when he was a teenager and both were reporters covering a medical meeting in Paris. They met again when Mussolini was Nello's Spanish teacher. Nello was an aviator in WWI and his obituary says he flew missions in Siberia. After the war he lived in St. Paul and Kentland and moved to Rensselaer in 1936, opening a restaurant on the Court House square. He quit the restaurant in 1946 and became manager of the Jasper County Airport. His obituary shows that a person with a big personality can make a huge impression in a short time.
We walk along the road until we come to the junction with the road coming from the east that separates Sections N and O. We leave the road and go west, almost to the line of Osage Orange trees that form the western border of the cemetery. Here we find a marker for John Roosevelt Lintner. This is a cenotaph, that is, a marker erected to honor a person whose remains are elsewhere. John Lintner was lost at sea in the wreck of the SS Yukon off the coast of Alaska. There were about 500 people on board but only eleven lives were lost.
Going back to the road and continuing to the north, we find another group of Babcock graves. Among them is the son of W.C. Babcock, W.C. Babcock Jr. He inherited the grain business that his father had built but was more interested in road construction. He devoted his energy to roads and to a limestone quarry and sold the elevators to Jasper County Farm Bureau. It is he who is primarily responsible for the big pit south east of Rensselaer, the Babcock Quarry. He also dabbled in politics, as a scrapbook at the Jasper County Historical Society shows.
- Introduction
- From the Entrance to Section A
- Sections B and C
- Sections D and U
- Section G
- Across The Creek to The Bridge
- Section P and Westward
- Sections M, L, K and the New Addition
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In Section P there are two graves of men killed in Vietnam, Allen Stath and Leonard Lane
John Lintner's son was Daryl Lintner who from 1956 until the early 2000s ran the popular Daryls Bakery in downtown Rensselaer.
The cenotaph for John Lintner is next to the grave of his wife Madelene who in 1962 married Howard Speaks. Howard has two markers in Weston. One is next to Madelene's and the other is a few yards away, across the road in the northwest corner of Section O, where his first wife Belle is buried. This second marker has his birth date but no death date. When markers lack death dates, it usually but not always indicates that there is no body in the grave.
Next to the second Howard Speaks marker is the grave for John Speaks, who was killed in the Philippines in World War II.
For still another example of a cenotaph, go south on the road from the Speaks' grave and find the small McFall marker next to the road on the east. Here are buried the parents of Jimmy McFall and in the lot is a marker for Jimmy. There is no mention in the burial record that his body was transferred from his grandparents' lot.
Also in Section O is the grave of Ellis Williams, who died in the Korean War.
Kendall Garvin's life had a double dose of tragedy. He grave is in the second row from the north-south road near the division between Sections M and N. Next to his grave are graves of his natural mother and the woman who adopted him, Nellie Barlow Moore, who in September of 1929 died a horrible and gruesome death as a result of an accidental discharge of a shotgun. (For more examples in Weston Cemetery of tragic deaths and short lives, see this blog post.)