A Grave Discovery

In September of 2021, I spent 24 hours in Rock Island County, Illinois. I had never been there before as my immediate family no longer lived in the area after I was born. I missed my grandmother’s funeral, which was in Rock Island in 1996, and that was the only occasion I ever had for going there. I never knew about the annual Simmon reunions that were still going on until I was at least 18 — my family wasn’t involved in those. But I was in Illinois last September visiting some family and it was the first opportunity I had to visit the Simmon family homeland since my research into family history began in the spring of 2020. 

While in the county, I visited the Rock Island County Historical Society (it was Labor Day and they were closed but a volunteer genealogist by the name of Orin Rockhold graciously met me and guided me through the archives for a few hours). I met and had meals with a couple of distant cousins, and I toured three cemeteries that contain Simmon family graves. This little video essay is focused on one of those grave yards in particular — Beulah Rural Township Cemetery.