{ SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1}I just posted some segments of problems I've encountered while researching my Dad's side of the family and thought perhaps the following might be of interest. This happened while working on my Mom's side of the family. My Mom's only sister lived until she was 90 yrs. old. A no. of yrs. ago she told me about a strange happening. My mother and she were born in Iowa and one time in the 1960's my aunt went back to visit. They were talking with some people who were then living in the home where both my mother and aunt were born. The couple in the home told them about a weird thing that had recently happened. They said one evening, for no apparent reason, a rafter in the ceiling in their living room gave away and out toppled a tombstone. It was complete and intact and looked as though it'd never been put on a gravesite. If it had, it hadn't been there long as it was not weathered. The engraving was clear and clean. No one seemed to know who's grave marker it was, nor why it was in the attic. It was the gravestone of a young child. My aunt, after telling me this, asked if I had ever heard of such a thing in my research. I hadn't. Several years later, I read an article in an Iowa publication about a family living on this same farm. They were preparing to build a shed and were tearing down an old building. When they tore out the floor boards, they found a grave stone half embedded in the dirt. They contacted authorities and were told it was probably a gravesite of someone who had died along the Mormon trail, which traversed the area years ago. Engraved on the stone was the name John B. son of D. B. and M. Anderson, died July 15, 1864, aged one year, 10 months, six days. Also included was the inscription, "Sweet little innocent that never transgressed has gone to everlasting rest". The authorities said that many of the solitary graves were those of early pioneers. It was not uncommon for individuals traveling through Iowa to bury other individuals along the trail when they died. When we were in Iowa we found a lady who's uncle had owned my mom and aunt's former home. We were visiting her one day, telling her about the tombstone and to my surprise, she said she had it. She said her uncle and a neighbor had had cattle and they let them run in the wooded area of the farm. One day her uncle brought the gravestone to one of the sheds for safekeeping as he was afraid the cattle would trample it where it was located in the woods. She said she thought probably the old stone had laid on the rotting floorboards of the shed and had slipped thru to the earth, where it eventually became covered with a layer of dirt. After the lady's uncle died, she came into possession of the tombstone. How the gravestone ever came to be put in the attic, or how or why it ended up under the floor of the old shed is a mystery. Even more so, who was the Anderson child? Was he a member of a Mormon family migrating westward in the 1860's and perhaps stopped for awhile on my grandfather's farm? No one living today has come up with a clue. The gravestone was remarkably clear and clean, giving no appearance that it had ever been set on a grave. juanita