G.A.R. Cemetery- Making the dead come to life

Through lots of digging on the internet, I was able to use several sites in order to find the obituaries of some of those buried in the Grand Army of the Republic cemetery.  I am very excited to have found these obituaries because they help give some clues to what kind of life expereinces these men and women had. And for those of us with an imagination, these obituaries make these people come to life for us.

I began my search with a list of those buried at the Hillside Cemetery at: http://www.usgwarchives.net/nv/washoe/photos/tombstones/oldhillside/page1.html.
I found this to be a great starting point because along with John McGee's name was an obituary, the only one provided with this list.

Reno Evening Gazette June 12, 1880
"Died

McGee- In Reno, June 11, 1880, J.C. McGee, aged 36. A native of Ohio
(Funeral to-morrow afternoon at 3 p.m. from the late residence of deceased.)

Death of J.C. McGee
J.C. McGee, the harness maker, died at 10 o'clock last night. He had been ill for about seventeen weeks. He passed away very peacefully and quietly,gradually sinking to his death. Mr. McGee entered the Union army at the outbreak of the rebellion, when he was but sixteen years of age, and fought till the close of the war. His friends think that his constitution was then
injured, and that the seeds of the ailment from which he died were then planted in his system. The funeral will take place to-morrow at 3 o'clock from the house. It was the last wish of the deceased that his funeral might be as quiet as possible."

The way this obituary is worded makes me wonder, what is it about the war that planted the "seeds of ailment from which" J.C. died? Was it some sort of depression or a physical ailment that caused his demise?

From here, I researched J.C. more in the newspaper archives and got a large return of newspapers with mention of his name. A majority of these were advertisements for his saddle business off of Sierra and 4th street in Reno. Another mention of J.C. was in the Reno Evening Gazette on April 10th, 1880. This short entry that said that "the harness maker was ill in Carson [City]." As we know from his obituary, he died 2 months later.

It was in trying to re-enter the web address for this obituary that I found the U.S.GenWeb Archives. This site contains a link for the Nevada Obituary Project. I felt like I had hit the jackpot with this find! People can contribute by going through old newspapers and adding obituaries that they have found. The obituaries here are 1936 and prior! I was able to go through their alphabetized names and compare them to the names of the list that I mentioned above.

The next obituary I found was that of E.O. Lane. With this one I had to do a little guessing because he came up as Otis Lane, but luckily because they included his initials in the cemetery listings, I was able to determine that this was him. The newspaper article and the text below are two different obituaries for Lane.

Reno Evening Gazette Feb. 5, 1923

"Died
Lane: In Reno, Feb. 3, 1923. - Ensign Otis Lane, beloved uncle of Mrs.Virginia Miunich of Worcester, Mass., and S.L. Austin of Sutherland, Iowa. A member of the G. A. R. A native of Maine. Aged eighty-four year. Friends are invited to attend funeral services at the chapel of the Ross- Burke Company Tuesday afternoon at two o'clock. Rev. Brewster Adams, assisted by the G. A. R., officiating. Interment G. A. R. cemetery" (http://www.genrecords.org/nvfiles/).

Part of the above newspaper clipping  above says, "Called by Death- The death of Otis Lane in Reno last Saturday took one more out of the ranks of veterans of the Civil War.  Mr. Lane aged eighty-four years had been a resident of Nevada for half a century and was in the sheep business both as a buyer and seller and as a shearer.  During the Civil War he attained the rank of ensign in the United States Navy." -Reno Evening Gazette Monday February 5, 1923

Although the next obituary is that of the son of a Union Veteran buried at the Hillside cemetery, it is the most rich in information. Because S.A. Hamlin was still alive at the time of his son's death, this article gives us, the readers, a look into an actual event in S.A.'s life. We get to experience with him a loss he had to experience and allowing us to empathize with him.

Daily Nevada State Journal October 9, 1895
"A Sad Death
Fred Hamlin, a Popular Young Man, Passes Away after a Long Illness Fred, eldest son of S. A. Hamlin, died at a late hour on Monday night after a lingering illness. He has been sick for over three years and has suffered terribly. He has received the best of medical aid, both here and in California,and his father and mother have been untiring in their efforts to humor him in every wish, in the hope that he might be restored to health. He was taken to California, and different localities in that State were tried at the suggestion of physicians and friends, but while he would show an improvement for a time that would give his parents and relatives a ray of hope, it would only be temporary, and gradually the disease sapped his life. He was patient through it all, and when the summons came to relieve him of his suffering he fell asleep, never to awaken on this earth. He had made a brave fight for life, but when he realized that there was little
hope he as bravely met the inevitable. He was a favorite with his associates and a young man who would, had he lived, made his mark in the world. He had just passed the mile post of his majority, and was ready to begin an active and useful life. His parents and relatives have the sympathy of the whole community in this hour of their great sorrow. The funeral will take place from the Baptist Church this afternoon at 2:30 o'clock. Friends and acquaintances are invited to attend" (http://files.usgwarchives.net/nv/washoe/obits/hamlin665gob.txt).

I also found more articles on S.A. Hamlin himself while looking through the newspaper archives.
On Friday, August 20, 1880 the Nevada State Journal published that S.A. Hamlin would be running for sheriff here in Reno. The interesting part of the newspaper was the "jottings" sections or the "brevity" column. One of these columns briefly mentions that Hamlin and his buddies were going on a deer hunting trip up north.

Nevada State Journal.
 August 20, 1880

It's so strange, compared to today, that these "little things" that people did in their everyday lives became "news."  It gives the newspaper of the time such an intimate feel as if it were a high school newspaper where everyone knows everyone else and it's a way to communicate what sorts of projects and activities everyone is getting involved with. Another article that I found was about a man who had just moved back to town and wanted everyone to know he was back in his old house and visitors were welcome. The newspaper was, in a way, like our social networking websites now. If you wanted to update everyone of your "status," you could do it through the newspaper.