Back in 2001 my brother and I were on a kick to find as many of our North Carolina and Georgia families who had migrated to Oklahoma as possible. Some of the family names we were searching for were Parker, Brown, Owen, Glazener, Burch
and others. It seems that sometime around the turn of the century there were several who made this move. One in particular
I was interested in finding was Prince Pulaski Edward Glazener.
Prince Pulaski was the son of William Jasper Glazener and Margaret Caroline Owen.
Margaret Caroline was a daughter of James Owen and Lizzie Parker. She was also a sister to my 2nd greatgrandfather William
Jackson Owen. Margaret Caroline and William Jasper were married just in time for him to go off to fight in the War Between
the States, but not before the act of procreation, because little Prince Pulaski Glazener was born in 1862. His dad never
returned from the war and Margaret Caroline later married James Wylie Walker and had several children with him.
For
some reason Prince Pulaski lived with his grandparents James and Elizabeth as he grew to manhood. When James died he
left Prince Pulaski a little money to start a life with. I always felt a fellow feeling or some kind of connection with the
love between James and his grandson and was strongly motivated to find out as much as I could about him and his final
resting place.
It
turns out he wasn't all that far away from me. When Prince Pulaski moved to
Oklahoma he settled in Love County. Love County is only about 50 miles from where I live just
across the Red River from Cooke County Tx. We drove up there several times and eventually even met his living daughter in law who was
in her late 90's.
The
cemetery story happened on our first visit to
Marrieta Love County, OK. We had discovered he was buried somewhere in a cemetery close to town, so we looked at several that day. Remember,
this was just before all these cemeteries started going online, so we were doing it the old fashioned way, with him starting
on one end and me the other and just walking the whole cemetery.
Finally
the sun was beginning to set and we had no luck, and even began to think maybe he did not have a marker and our entire
effort was for nothing. We asked several people for directions to any "out of the way places" and followed them all to no
avail. It was beginning to get dark, you know, that time just before the sun goes down and the rays are very pretty but getting
dimmer by the second and we had along way to go so we decided to head home.
Just
as we were driving out of Marrieta something hit me that we should turn down this little road and follow it. My brother
thought I was just wasting time but I followed this little road until it lead us just outside of town and wouldn't you know
it, there was a cemetery and the very first rather large marker read "P P Glazener".
Talk
about being excited. I was excited and for some strange reason I felt inside that something special had just happened--there
is that place--I still feel that way.
I
think it was something to do with real love never dying and the ties we create here on earth being forever.