The road turns to the east and we follow it a bit before we leave it to find the large vault in Lot 73 of Section M. Here lie the remains of a skating act that was popular a century ago. Earle Reynolds won a number of skating championships and used roller skating to earn his living as an entertainer. He married another skater, Nellie Donagan, and they performed together. Although they enjoyed considerable publicity when they were alive, the Internet has very little about them. They could be considered as falling into the category of "almost famous." Here is one account of their careers. Both are buried in the vault with Earle's brother and mother.
Nellie Reynolds came from a family of entertainers and the entertainment tradition continued for the next two generations. Nellie's twin daughters Maude and Helen skated with Earle and Nellie during the 1920s. (Helen has duplicate findagrave entries, here and here.) Helen organized a skating group of Rensselaer girls that performed from 1934 to 1950. The group had to be periodically refreshed as older skaters dropped out. Maude's two children both became skaters. Daughter Patty LeMaire Blosser became a professional ice skater from 1941 to 1950 and for some of those years toured with Sonja Henie's Hollywood Ice Review. She left Rensselaer after high school and did not return until a few years before her death. The graves of all three plus two of their husbands have small, modest markers near the border of Sections V and W, close to where the road makes a right angle. (For some reason the marker for Helen has her name as Ellen; all the records give it as Helen.) While the local paper made the deaths of Earle and Nellie front page news with banner headlines, the deaths of the Helen and Patty received only standard obituaries and Maude's death seems to have passed unnoticed. Maude's son Edward LaMaire was on a plane with the US figure skating team going to the world championships in Prague in 1961 when the plane crashed, killing all aboard. He is buried in New York.
There are over 700 veterans buried in Weston Cemetery. On the northern edge of Section K is a tall marker for the grave of John Hudson, who was killed in Germany during World War II. He died in February of 1945 and his body was not moved to Weston Cemetery until December of 1947.
North of Bunkum Road lies the north addition of Weston Cemetery. In its southeast corner is a black granite monument honoring veterans. Each year Memorial Day ceremonies are held here.
The north addition of 17 acres was added in 2002 and has room for over 8000 burials. The graves it contains are mostly on the northern and eastern edges.
- 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
Did you know that Mount Ayr once had a successful bank? Joseph Sigler was its cashier. His grave is south of the Reynolds crypt, along the road that separates Section N from Section O.
Four rows to the west of the Reynolds marker and a bit to the north is the marker for George Morgan, the last veteran of the Civil War to die in Jasper County. He saw action in several battles and was on Sherman's March to The Sea.
In Section M are three authors of books that had limited distribution: Isaac Lewis, a professor at the University of Texas who wrote a guide to the trees of Texas, John Alter who wrote stories of Newton and Jasper County in Hoosier Hunting Ground under the pen name Bill Bat, and John S Blue, who wrote tales of pioneer days and about Hoosier wit and wisdom and is the third generation of Blues buried in Weston Cemetery. (The Lane-Wood directory says he is buried in Section M Lot 88. That is a mistake. He is in Section O Lot 88.)
Not all casualties of war are from enemy action or disease. Carroll Boswinkle was killed in a training accident in Maryland during World War II. His grave is just to the east of the Hudson monument.
Further to the east of the Hudson lot is a marker for Isobel and Robert Lambert. (It is next to a white marker for Samuel and Sylvia Sigman.) Because Isobel has both birth and death dates on the marker, one would assume that she is buried here. However, she is not; this marker is another example of a cenotaph. After the death of her husband when he was only 26, she remarried. She is buried with second husband Virgil Elijah in Section J. Because women usually change last names with marriage, they can be very hard to trace in genealogical research and in trying to link people in cemeteries.The grave of Emory Harrison who is in the Indiana Football Hall of Fame is near the north west corner of Section J. The athletic complex at Rensselaer Central High School consisting of a football field, an all-weather track, and a baseball field is named for him. He coached football in Rensselaer from 1921 to 1929, left for some other schools, and then returned to Rensselaer from 1944 to 1967 and coached several sports.
Immediately to the south of the Harrison lot is that of Rensselaer lawyer Emmett and Imogene LaRue. They were the largest personal donors for the construction of the swimming pool in Brookside Park and the pool is named after them.