The Ledwyn Cemetery – Travelling through Time

As a kid, I spent a lot of time in cemeteries.

Each summer, my mom would load my older sister and me into the car – along with two of my aunts and a picnic lunch of box drinks and bologna sandwiches – and we’d go “visit the family,” as they’d call it.

We’d make our rounds – Geysir, Skylake, Silver, and tiny roadside graveyards.

Today, cemeteries fascinate me because of the history. Long after people are gone, they live on through stories and memories passed down through generations.

My paternal great-grandparents are buried in the Ledwyn cemetery. Prior to the 1990s, I only saw their graves in a grainy photo my Baba Karatchuk – whose maiden name was Ratkowski – received from a relative.

During the summer of 1991, my parents packed us into the car, and we visited the Ledwyn Cemetery – and the graves of my great-grandparents, Peter and Julia Ratkowski.

And my dad filled us in on the history.

When Julia died in 1929 at the age of 50, Peter made her headstone – common practice in those days. Peter was 11 years older than Julia and, after he marked her headstone – according to the story – he then marked his with “194 ” and left a space after the four. He truly believed he’d die during the 1940s.

Peter died in 1950 at the age of 82. It’s a sad piece of historical irony.

My parents often say they’d like to replace the original headstones, placing the new next to the old for historical purposes. But I prefer the original stones.

New is nice, but you can’t replace history.

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