You never know what you’ll find on the Internet…
In writing the newspaper history essay for the Burns Times-Herald, our essayist, Isolde Raftery, was trying to discover the full name of one D.L. Grace. Along with his wife, Nellie, D.L. Grace founded the East Oregon Herald — an important predecessor of the Times-Herald — in 1887. In common with many men of the 19th Century, Mr. Grace seems to have preferred to use his initials in place of his full name. Thus far, we have been unable to discover any clues about what “D.L.” might stand for. (Please contact us if you have any insights.)
What Isolde did find, however, is this image, courtesy of the nonprofit USGen Web’s Tombstone Transcription Project:
According to the source, this grave is located at Cove Cemetery in Union County, Oregon. The adjacent grave site of “Nellie R. Grace” is also recorded, so we’ve almost certainly located the man we’ve been looking for: although, even on his memorial stone, only his initials are given!
While this photo brought us no closer to the specific information for which we were searching, it was nonetheless fascinating to find further visual evidence of a person who previously was known to us only as a name on the masthead of old newspapers. Little discoveries like this certainly help to enliven the process of historical research.
Was the Grand Secretary of the Masonic Lodge in Oregon of any assistance in this effort? There is still a lodge in Cove – Cove Lodge #91 – with a list of their membership as of 2003 –
Good eye, Dona. The Masonic Seal on Grace’s tombstone would indeed seem to indicate that he was a member of the organization. We hadn’t picked up on that clue, so thanks for bringing it to our attention! We will try to follow up on this lead soon.
Just a couple days after Dona contacted us, Isolde found the information we were after–although she wanted to give most of the credit to the library staff at the Western History Room of the Burns Public Library.
The full name of D.L. Grace was (drum roll, please…) DAVID LOUIS Grace. Mystery solved!