Iowa VI

Heading for Des Moines, to the Capitol grounds, I happened to see the sign for the Iowa Veteran's Cemetery. I figured I'd take a chance and see if there was anything there.

As luck would have it, I found this marker. For reasons still unclear to me, I wandered into the administration building at the site. There I met this really great person. She spent at least an hour with me talking about my project and about what they do at this site.

While I was there a woman came in wanting to know how to make arrangements to have her late husbands ashes interred at the site. My new friend explained that the Cemetery had no rules regarding what kind of a container was placed inside what they call "The Wall". Only that it would fit and that one should consider if they, too, would like to join their loved one later and to allow for that when choosing the vessel. She said that she had seen jewelry boxes, vases and even a Harley-Davidson gas tank used as containers. We both got a smile out of that as we had just been talking about bikes and Patriot Guard.

She directed me to another site that I had never heard of before. So, twice in one day I had discovered sites previously unknown. I have learned, now, to try to leave some time open on each trip just for such lucky occurrences.

The new site is the newly dedicated Veteran's Park in Parkersburg and it will be my next post.