Roberts Roots & Branches

  Rock  Springs Rocket, May 1960 "Remembrance is a golden chain To have, to love and then to part Is the greatest sorrow of one's heart, The years may wipe out many things But this they wipe out never--- The memory of those happy days When we were all together."

  This weekend I was near the Salt Lake City Cemetery and I have still been thinking about all of the overturned and toppled headstones.      I stopped by on Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend.   This time the front gates were open!   And,   I photographed more of the damage. A severe and historic windstorm ripped up at least 200 trees from the cemetery grounds last September 2020 and postponed at least two funerals.   Winds reached 112 miles per hour.   According to the Salt Lake Tribune, for the public’s safety, officials closed the cemetery for eight months following the historic windstorm last September, 2020.   The wind uprooted trees, and caused significant damage to the cemetery.   According to the newspaper article, no vaults or caskets were damaged however; 100-year-old trees tore up large pieces of ground as they toppled over pulling up headstones, asphalt, curbs, and gutters. Salt Lake City hired an archaeologist to help document the storm’s impact on damaged historical

  Memorial Day 2020, I was recovering from pneumonia, surgery, a broken wrist, and the pandemic was locking down the country so I was unable to visit any graves or leave any flowers.   This year, I decided for Memorial Day, I would like to remember and honor as many ancestors and relatives as possible.   In addition, I wanted to remember the Frontier Mine No. 1 coalminers killed in 1923.    My preplanning included making tags for our Roberts Roots & Branches family and for the Frontier Mine No. 1 coalminers, and attaching the tags to a single silk flower.  For Roberts ancestors I used various colors of silk flowers, but for the Frontier Mine No. 1 miners I wanted a single color and I selected yellow, which ended up working perfectly.  I attached tags to the Roberts family member’s flowers and my grandchildren helped me attach tags to the coalminer’s flowers.  As we worked on attaching the tags, it sparked conversations about the coalminers, our ancestors, and the meaning of Memoria