Visitors, We Have Visitors!
September 2021: Bradeen Descendants Visit
Lara Gilleland and her mother Linda (Bradeen) Gilleland visited the Elder Grey Cemetery and Meeting House on September 4, 2021. They are descended from Robert Bradeen, whose burial is said to be the oldest in the cemetery, and his wife Sarah Welch. Arthur Carlton Bradeen, Robert’s great grandson born in 1859, settled in Norway, Maine, and it’s the ancestral home where Lara and Linda now reside. They report that their line of Bradeens were hoarders, and they are pleased to have inherited a wealth of family photos and treasures.
June 2021: Gray Descendents Visit
Three descendants of Nehemiah and Olive (Goodwin) Gray arrived to visit the Elder Grey Cemetery on a recent June 2021 day. Pictured at their two obelisk gravestones are Stacey Gray of Kennebunk, Maine, center - and her distant cousins Jenney Whittier of Vancouver, Washington, left – and Steve Nason of Cambridge, Massachusetts, right. Stacey is descended from Nehemiah Gray's son Andrew, and Jenney and Steve (first cousins) are descended from Nehemiah's daughter Mary who married Joseph Nason. They hope to attend a future pilgrimage service to honor their ancestral uncle Elder James Gray.
November 2021: Robert Bradeen Descendents Visit
Kelli Smith and her mother Eileen Roberts took a little detour to include a visit to the Elder Grey Cemetery on November 5, 2021. Kelli came from Oceanside, California, to receive her degree from Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester. Eileen lives in Palmdale. The documentation of the Revolutionary War service of their ancestor Robert Bradeen has provided them with what they need to join the DAR. They descend from Robert’s grandson, Almon James Forest Bradeen, who was born in the old Bradeen home near the Elder Grey Meeting House in 1835. As an adult, he and his brother Frank Jackson Bradeen migrated to Anoka, Minnesota, and later generations migrated to California.
