A Piece of My History

This weekend has been busy and eventful. My grams was in town so we went to dinner with her and my aunt Debbie on Friday night at this great Italian restaurant. It had such a fun atmosphere and even a old man singing and playing the accordion to entertain us through dinner. Saturday evening we headed up to Salt Lake and had dinner with aunt Susan spent some time catching up with her. Now for one of the highlights of my life. . . Ever since I took a family history class in college I have loved learning more about my ancestors. During my family history class I found my great-grandmother's (my dad's grandmother, Freida Bobby Medalie Conley) obituary that was printed in the paper when she died. Awesome I know! After re-reading through this obituary recently I stopped on the paragraph that talked about her burial services and how she'd be buried in the Montefiore Cemetery, a little Jewish cemetery, in Salt Lake. So after dinner Jesse and I went to find this little cemetery and couldn't find it anywhere so we decided to go to the Salt Lake City cemetery where my great-grandpa was buried. This great-grandfather was married to Freida his name was John Patrick Conley and I'm guessing they weren't buried together because he wasn't Jewish and the cemetery where Freida is buried is strictly a Jewish cemetery. After hunting for about an hour for John Patrick's grave with no luck we headed back to the car and I was disappointed. Approaching the car Jesse found an old plaque on a separate part of the cemetery that said "Montefiore Cemetery". So we went in and found the little Jewish cemetery and went looking from grave to grave. I looked down at one point and couldn't believe the last name I saw "Conley". I can't even explain the feeling, but it was amazing to look down and see a part of my history. I found my great-grandmother's grave! And the word from my grams is that Freida's temple work hasn't been done yet so I'm on the case to see if that's true and if I can get her temple work done for her. What an amazing experience. Next goal is to locate the grave of John Patrick Conley.

We also located President Gordon B. Hinckley's grave.

And David O. McKay's

I love that my great-grandmother's headstone has "MAMA" as her title.

Freida was buried next to her father, Bernard, who is my great-great-grandfather, and apparently someone else has visited his grave because there was a rock on top of it.

The old Montefiore Cemetery

Everything was in Hebrew

Such a energizing experience to discover more of my family and an experience I will remember forever and share with my children. I'm hoping to visit the grave again with some flowers.