Dear Ancestor,
Your tombstone stands among the rest;
Neglected and alone.
The name and date are chiseled out
On polished, marbled stone.
It reaches out to all who care
It is too late to mourn.
You did not know that I exist
You died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you
In flesh, in blood, in bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own.
Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
Who would have loved you so.
I wonder if you lived and loved,
I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot,
And come to visit you.
Walter Butler Palmer (1868-1932), written in 1906
We live among the silent ones, the forgotten ones. They are silent only because we do not have ears to hear. They are forgotten but not erased. They are there, in the deep, in the background, continuing their journey through us. They are our ancestors. Re-membering them and telling their story can take many forms: through thought, through prayer, through our interactions with others, through research, through writing, and through various symbolic acts. As descendants, we are called to reveal their relevance to our world, to shed light on the mysteries surrounding their lives, and to reunify their story with the greater family story.
Photo by E D Nash, Red Oak, Iowa
“Mrs. Susanna [Bright] Dragoo died last Sunday [July 16, 1899] at the home of her daughter, Mrs. [P]. Wince at 602 Nuckols Street, aged 83 years.” Had she a headstone, it might have said “Mother of Dave” or “Beloved Wife of Jacob” or “Daughter of David” or “Sister of Sarah” … or many other titles too numerous to fit on a single stone. Had she a headstone, it might have had her birth and death date, with a space in between. Our Aunt Violet Moore would have said all the drama of her life—all the hopes, all the joys, all the pain, every emotion, every thought—lies silent within that single, small space. Had she a headstone, we may have known her name. Was it really Susanna? Had she a headstone, we may be more confident to say that she was loved, that her life had purpose, that she died fulfilled and in the arms of the angels.
Susanna was buried. And that was it … no titles, no name, no trace of her beloved, no space. But where was she buried? Not in the earth, for the corpse is not the person. Susanna was buried in our hearts and minds, waiting to be resurrected, waiting to be “Great Grandmother of Vi” or “Great-Great Grandmother of Kara” … or many other titles too numerous to fit on a single stone.
In June of 2025, nearly one hundred and twenty-six years after her death, Susanna’s obituary was located by her great-granddaughter Vi Parsons.
In Vi Parsons’ own words:
“In 1998, when I published my family history book about my great grandparents, Jacob Dragoo and Susanna Bright, I couldn’t locate a burial place for Jacob. I only had estimated years of Susanna’s birth and death from census records and a cemetery deed purchased by her daughter Mary Dragoo Wince.
Susanna is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Lot 241, Plot 6, in Red Oak, Montgomery County, Iowa. Her grave is identified as “Mother of Dave.” With the assistance of Artificial Intelligence, her obituary was located in The Red Oak Express newspaper and posted to the Find A Grave website Memorial ID 149899413.
The Red Oak Express Red Oak, Iowa, July 21, 1899:
Mrs. Susanna Dragoo died last Sunday [July 16, 1899] at the home of her daughter, Mrs. [P.] Wince at 602 Nuckols Street, aged 83 years. The deceased was born in Licking County, Ohio on April 3, 1816. She married Jacob Dragoo January 14, 1836. They moved to Illinois in 1844* and to Iowa in 1850*. To this union eleven children were born, seven sons and four daughters. Those living in Red Oak being David and Harry [Harvey] Dragoo, Mrs. Sarah Swisher and Mrs. Mary Wince. She was a member of the M. E. church in her youth but being an invalid did not unite with a church in this state. The funeral was held from the residence Monday at 4 p.m., Rev. Shea officiating.
I verified the grave marker regulations for the cemetery and ordered a grave stone. It was set in place on June 26, 2025.”
Today, on the anniversary of her death, we re-member Susanna with this new-found obituary and at long last, a headstone with a space. With this space, we celebrate Susanna’s contribution to the family and recognize the sacrifices that she made so that we might live.
We remember the child Susanna (or was it Susan Anna), one of nine children born to David and Amy (Stenise) Bright, pioneers of northeastern Ohio. We remember her hopes and dreams, her idealism, and her tenacity wrought from life on a remote, 160-acre farm. We remember the value she placed on family—her dependence on them and her need to be someone who could be depended upon. We remember Susanna as a young woman, married at twenty-one to Jacob Dragoo, son of the legendary “Indian Billy” Dragoo. We remember the births of her ten children, and we remember the likely still-birth of an eleventh. We remember her dedication to her family’s survival and comfort. We remember her family’s move to Illinois, perhaps to be near her ailing father. We remember her father’s death and with it, the closing of an entire chapter of her life. We remember Susanna at fifty-five years old, the year she was widowed. Another chapter closed. We remember her gratitude as she looked back at all of life’s joys. We remember her worries as she looked forward to all of life’s uncertainties. Would she ever see some of her children again? What became of Joseph James?
But more than anything, we remember her beloved, her angels, surrounding her in her life, as we surround her in her death.
Friday evening, March 3rd, a number of friends of Mrs. Dragoo Mother of Mrs. Phil Wince, gave her a surprise party at the home of Mrs. Wince in celebration of her 77th birthday anniversary and presented her with a handsome, easy chair and other valuable testimonials of friendship. The friends brought well-filled baskets and a big supper was a feature of a very enjoyable evening.
Mrs. Dragoo was born in Licking County, Ohio. She came to Red Oak in 1870 and has resided here nearly a quarter of a century.
~ Red Oak Sun, March 1894, Montgomery County, Iowa
Susanna is part of us still. May her example, handed down through the generations, be to us a ‘valuable testimonial’ of both perseverance and friendship. May Susanna continue to speak to us, to reveal her mysteries, and to offer her strength as we carry on with the work of life and family.
Note: *The family was in Licking County, Ohio on the 1850 census; in Livingston County, Illinois in 1860, and moved to Iowa before 1870. Jacob died in 1871.