Friends Of Beech Grove Cemetery and its Chapel

Friends Of Beech Grove Cemetery and its Chapel Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Friends Of Beech Grove Cemetery and its Chapel, Bedford, IN.

The Friends of Beech Grove Cemetery and its chapel is a small volunteer group that is dedicated to preserving the history of the Beech Grove Cemetery in Bedford, Indiana.

William Milton Warner was born on October 26, 1896 in Terre Haute to Milton and Mary Warner. At some point the family mo...
03/20/2026

William Milton Warner was born on October 26, 1896 in Terre Haute to Milton and Mary Warner. At some point the family moved to Indian Springs in Martin County.

Twelve days after the United States entered World War I, Warner enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He served as a seaman second class, but his service was short, due to physical disability, and he was discharged on July 19, 1917. On June 5, 1918 he registered for the draft, and the draft card is annotated by the registrar “Discharged from service feet.” Presumably that means that he was discharged because of a foot condition or injury, and was not qualified to re-enlist.

William Warner married May Rainey, a 20-year-old woman from Indian Springs, on December 30, 1918. He was 22. In the 1920 census, the couple are living at 707 S Street in Bedford. They have no children, and he is listed as a laborer.

By the time of the 1930 census, the Warners are living at 1108 Summit Lane in Bedford. William is working as a drill runner, presumably with the limestone industry. They have three children; Florence, 6; Eva, 3 ½; and Charles, 2. (Another child, Bonnie, was born in 1925 and died in infancy.) May’s 18-year-old sister was also living with them and working as a trimmer at a shirt factory.

William Milton Warner died at home on August 18, 1936 of lung cancer at the age of 39. In an obituary published the next day, the Times-Mail newspaper clarified that prior to his five-month illness, Warner had worked for the Indiana Limestone Company. Burial was in Beech Grove Cemetery. His wife May applied for a military headstone a year later, and it is that headstone that still marks the grave of this young father and husband, gone too soon.

William Everett Mitchell was born in Bedford August 1, 1844, the oldest of six children born to John A. & Phoebe (Dye) M...
07/19/2025

William Everett Mitchell was born in Bedford August 1, 1844, the oldest of six children born to John A. & Phoebe (Dye) Mitchell. The family appears in the 1850 census for Perry Township, then John A. Mitchell died in 1859, leaving his wife Phoebe as the head of the household in the 1860 census for Springville with 15-year-old William and four other younger children.

William may have delayed his entry into the Civil War to stay in Springville and help his mother. He finally enlisted & mustered on January 25, 1865 in Company B, 145th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. The 145th served in the Union Army between February 16, 1865, and January 21, 1866. The unit was organized very late in the war, and its service consisted of a few skirmishes and guard duty. William Everett Mitchell mustered out on January 21, 1866 in Cuthbert, Georgia.

Two months later, William married Nannie Sullivan on March 29, 1866 in Lawrence County. According to the Lawrence Mail newspaper, Wiliam and Nannie were devoted to each other. They had one child who died. In the 1870 census for Shawswick Township, William is listed as a farm laborer who owned some real estate and lived with his wife Nannie. By the time of the 1880 census, he was keeping a livery stable and still living with Nannie.

William Everett Mitchell fell ill in January 1887, and was cared for by his wife until his death at home on March 14 that same year. He was 42. According to the Lawrence Mail newspaper, many “sorrowful friends” went to the Mitchell home to view the remains and comfort his widow that day and the next. His body was carried to Beech Grove Cemetery in a “hearse drawn by two white horses and decorated with rosettes and plumes,” followed by carriages of mourners. Mitchell was described as a well-respected man who had been in the “teaming and livery business” who, according to the article, had driven that same hearse many times.

The stone marking William Everett Mitchell’s grave has a few interesting aspects. Names on the stone include Mitchell and Sarah A. Sullivan, his mother-in-law, who died July 1, 1887. There is a carved anchor on one side of the stone with the name “Sullivan.” The Mitchell side of the stone has a bouquet of flowers.

An anchor found on a grave is usually associated with a seaman’s life or the maritime profession, but there is no indication that anyone in the Mitchell or Sullivan family was a seaman. The flowers in the bouquet serve as a reminder of the temporary nature of life.

William Everett Mitchell’s widow Nannie remarried four months later to George W. Adams.

05/28/2025

Jimi Beaver is interested in purchasing two plots. Please message him directly if you have any to sell.

James William Chambers was born on July 8, 1898 in Bedford, the second of six children of John Perry and Mary Jane “Jenn...
05/25/2025

James William Chambers was born on July 8, 1898 in Bedford, the second of six children of John Perry and Mary Jane “Jennie” Flinn Chambers. In the 1900 census, the family is listed at 1817 14th Street. John Chambers was working as a day laborer. According to the 1910 census, the family lived on Maxwell Street in Indianapolis, and John Chambers was still working as a laborer.

Eighteen-year-old James William Chambers enlisted in the Army on December 19, 1916 in St. Louis, Missouri, and served in Company K of the 34th Infantry. He trained at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. There is no evidence of his serving overseas. He died of influenza at Alcatraz, California on October 22, 1918 at the age of nineteen. His remains were returned to Bedford and he was buried in Beech Grove Cemetery.

In 1936, Jennie Chambers applied for a military headstone for the grave of her son James, asking that the stone be sent to Chambers Bros. Electric Company at 2006 N Street in Bedford. The military stone in the photograph is most likely the one she ordered.

Edward Beck was born August 14, 1883 in Morgantown, Kentucky to Jesse and Mollie Beck. The family, which included nine c...
11/23/2024

Edward Beck was born August 14, 1883 in Morgantown, Kentucky to Jesse and Mollie Beck. The family, which included nine children at one point, moved first to Oolitic in 1900 and then to Bedford in 1912. Edward’s father Jesse Beck worked as a sawyer in the limestone industry.

Edward Beck served in the 42nd Balloon Company in World War I, a unit of about 20 men organized on March 25, 1918 in San Antonio, Texas, which departed the U.S. for France on June 30 and arrived in Brest on July 12. As a balloonist, Beck most likely manned an aerial observation balloon, probably similar to the one in the photo.

In 1919 Edward Beck appears on a passenger list for the U.S. Army Transport Service departing from Bordeaux, France on the ship USS Susquehanna. He was a corporal in the 42nd Balloon Company, Air Service. In 1922, the Bedford Daily-Mail reported the death of his father, Jesse T. Beck, of Bright’s Disease at his home on M Street. At the time Edward and his brother Thomas were both still in the military, stationed at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

Beck returned to Bedford after his military service, and on August 15, 1924, the Bedford Daily Mail reported that “Edward Beck, employed at Ingalls Mill, was painfully injured when both eyes filled with sand.”

In the 1930 census, Edward Beck appears on 416 M Street in Bedford in a household headed by his mother. He is a 47-year-old single laborer at a stone mill. His sister Effie also lives there.

On October 23, 1931, the Times-Mail reported that Edward Beck had been held up and robbed of $11 while driving on “Lover’s Lane” two miles east of Bedford. According to the Times-Mail, “Lover’s Lane” was a road connecting “the Heltonville Pike and U.S. Highway Route 50.” A Bloomington man, Jesse Polly, was arrested and charged with assault and battery as well as the robbery. The outcome of the case is unknown.

In 1933, 50-year-old Edward Beck is listed as a member of the Shawswick Lodge of the Order of the Odd Fellows attending some kind of event at Seymour.

On March 14, 1936, Edward Beck married 39-year-old widow Hazel (Bottorff) Easton in Bedford. In the 1940 census, the couple are living at 2020 7th Street, where they had been for five years. He is listed as a stonecutter at a stone mill.

58-year-old Edward Beck died on November 6, 1941, at a veterans’ hospital in Fayetteville, Arkansas, after 84 days there. The cause of death was pneumonia. His body was returned to Bedford and he was buried in Beech Grove Cemetery. According to his obituary, he had been a diamond saw operator at Ingalls Stone Mill and a member of the Baptist Church and the Odd Fellows Lodge.

USS Susquehanna photo from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Susquehanna_(ID-3016)
Balloon photo from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_observation_balloon_service_in_World_War_I #/media/File:Type_R_Observation_Balloon.jpg

Donald "Sandy" Smith was born in 1934 and grew up in Kirksville, Indiana. He began playing guitar with Uncle Bob Hardy a...
09/11/2024

Donald "Sandy" Smith was born in 1934 and grew up in Kirksville, Indiana. He began playing guitar with Uncle Bob Hardy at the age of 14 through both the Happy Valley Folks and the Hayloft Frolic Television Shows on WTTV in Bloomington.

Sandy was also a part of the many Hayloft Frolic personal appearance tours the group made throughout southern Indiana and eastern Illinois. Sandy's talents were such that he also toured with some of the stars of the Grand Ole Opry when they came to the area.

Sandy made his first public appearance at a very young age - he was only eleven years old when he stood before the audience at the Green Valley Jamboree Barn at Harrodsburg, Indiana.
Uncle Bob Hardy saw Sandy Smith when, at the age of fourteen, Sandy visited the radio station WTTS in Bloomington to try to catch a glimpse of his idol. Uncle Bob motioned for him to come into the studio. That was the beginning of a lasting friendship; Uncle Bob told him to come back the very next day and had him playing the back-up music on his radio shows. Sandy hitchhiked thirteen miles, twice a day, six days a week, carrying his fifteen-dollar guitar to the station to work with Uncle Bob.

When he was 16, Sandy toured with Red Garrett and his Pioneers, allowing him to gain more exposure to "live" audiences. A highlight during that time was appearing on a show in Bethany, Missouri with another of his idols, the legendary Texas Troubadour himself, Ernest Tubb.

Uncle Bob had left his radio show to start a new show called the Hayloft Frolic on the television station WTTV. Sandy joined the cast and was seen every Thursday night.

In the spring of 1954, Sandy got his own 25-minute show on WTTS, "Sandy and the Haylofters," that aired every Saturday morning at 11:05am. He had also begun songwriting.

Sadly, Donald “Sandy” Smith’s promising career was abruptly cut short on July 10, 1954 when he was killed in an automobile accident on State Road 45 four miles north of the Crane gate. The 19-year-old musical artist was buried here at Beech Grove Cemetery, this headstone marking his final resting place.

Information and photos from https://www.hillbilly-music.com/artists/story/index.php?id=15710 and https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/52561628/donald-joe-smith

This humble concrete marker in Beech Grove Cemetery marks the grave of six-week-old baby boy Fredie Baker, son of Ray Ba...
05/05/2024

This humble concrete marker in Beech Grove Cemetery marks the grave of six-week-old baby boy Fredie Baker, son of Ray Baker, a 28-year-old stone mill laborer, and his 17-year-old wife Jessie (Clayton) Baker. Fredie was born on September 9, 1919 and died on October 26. According to his death certificate, the cause of death was “infection of bowels from improper feeding.”

The Bedford Weekly Mail newspaper reported on October 31, 1919 that the family was living on West 15th Street in Bedford, but that Fredie died at the home of his grandparents at 13th and R Streets.

Concrete gravestones like this one are not that common in Beech Grove Cemetery, possibly because of the easy availability of more durable local natural stone. However, according to historic cemeteries expert Mike Leamy, “In historic cemeteries across the country, we find a variety of humbler, home-made concrete gravestones. These markers were made by grieving relatives at times when families could not afford commercially produced stones. Often placed as a temporary marker until the improving economy allowed for a better stone, the concrete became permanent either by design or neglect.”https://www.oregon.gov/oprd/OH/Documents/HB30_FuneraryFolkartandConcrete.pdf

This unusual “tree-stump” style bench marks the final resting place of Fred and Wanda (Mohan) Underwood. Both were born ...
03/08/2024

This unusual “tree-stump” style bench marks the final resting place of Fred and Wanda (Mohan) Underwood. Both were born in 1934, Fred in Bedford and Wanda in Cambria, Illinois.

The couple married on June 6, 1953 in Cambria. Fred Underwood’s father, the Reverend Ralph Underwood, officiated at the ceremony, and Fred’s uncle Raymond Underwood served as best man. The groom’s grandparents, Bert and Rose Underwood, also of Bedford, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary the same day.

Wanda Mohan Underwood died on December 14, 2002 and was buried here. Fred married Kathryn Groves and was living in Tupelo, Mississippi, at the time of his death on April 13, 2018 at the age of 84. According to his obituary, he was a minister at the River of Life Church.

Fred and Wanda Underwood had four children, whose names are listed on the back of the bench: Frederick, Jr., Flint, R. Edward and Crystal. Another name, Rosa, appears on the arm of the bench; it is unknown exactly whom this refers to.

Many other Underwood relatives, including Ralph Underwood and his wife Cleo and Fred’s grandparents Bert and Rose Underwood, are also buried in Beech Grove Cemetery.

Jediah “Jesse” Chambers was born on July 22, 1873 in Jackson County, one of at least twelve children of James, a Civil W...
12/27/2023

Jediah “Jesse” Chambers was born on July 22, 1873 in Jackson County, one of at least twelve children of James, a Civil War veteran, and Martha Ann (James) Chambers. The family farmed in Jackson County, then moved to Flinn Township, Lawrence County, where they appear in the 1880 census. By 1900 Jesse’s parents were farming in Shawswick Township.

On December 24, 1895, Jesse Chambers married Mary “Viola” Donihue Badgley in Lawrence County. Jesse’s new wife already had a child who appears in the 1900 census at 1211 H Street in Bedford as a 13-year-old son named George Badgley. Viola herself is only listed as 25 in 1900, making her only 12 years old at the time of her son’s birth.

In 1897 Viola Chambers became violently ill after eating an onion, but she recovered.

The October 22, 1900 Bedford Daily Mail carried a story describing the su***de by morphine of a young man named Carl King, a relative of Viola Chambers and her son. The su***de took place at the home of Jesse Chambers and his family.

On December 1, 1900 Jesse Chambers lost part of his right thumb in an accident involving a machine at the Bent Woodworks, presumably his place of employment.

On April 29, 1904, Jesse and Viola Chambers divorced. Mary “Viola” Donihue Badgley Chambers married again on May 15 of that same year, this time in Marion County. She married a total of four times.
Jesse married Katherine Williams on September 9, 1905 at the parsonage of a Methodist Church, presumably the First Methodist Church, in Bedford. The couple had at least seven children, one of whom appears to have died in infancy.

In the 1910 census for Bedford, Jesse Chambers is listed at 618 J Street with his second wife Kate and three children, sons Edford and Walter and daughter Jessie. Jesse Chambers is a laborer at a lumber mill.

On June 4, 1910 the Bedford Daily Mail reported that Jesse Chambers, an employee of the Southern Indiana Railroad, was the victim of a workplace accident in which his left ankle was crushed by a large stone.

Several more children were born to Jesse and Katherine Chambers. One of them, a daughter named Marie, was badly injured while coasting down a hill in Martinsville in March 1914. According to the newspaper, the family had gone there to live.

By 1915, the family was back in Bedford and living at 1702 13th Street. Jesse was working as a “car blocker” for the John A. Rowe stone mill. An advertisement for the John Rowe business can be seen below.

Jesse Chambers died on October 9, 1919 at the age of 46. The cause of death was complications from an appendectomy that he had received fifteen months before. He was buried at Beech Grove Cemetery, and his grave is marked with the simple stone shown here. His widow Katherine outlived him by 34 years, dying in 1953, and even though she remarried, she is buried next to Jesse.

Lillian Lockenour was born on December 29, 1888 in Salem, Indiana to John Lockenour and Alice (Crim) Lockenour. She grew...
09/04/2023

Lillian Lockenour was born on December 29, 1888 in Salem, Indiana to John Lockenour and Alice (Crim) Lockenour. She grew up on a farm in Washington County with three other siblings, sister Zetta, brother Arthur who died at 18, and younger brother George.

Lillian married James McGinnis on December 27, 1911 in Oklahoma. McGinnis was from Pennsylvania; it isn’t clear why either of them were in Oklahoma at the time. They apparently divorced at some point, but it isn’t clear exactly when.

Lillian Lockenour McGinnis studied nursing and entered the service of the U.S. Veterans’ Administration at some point. In the 1920 census for Bedford, she is listed as Lillian McGinnis with her mother and stepfather August Joss at 1828 12th Street. She is a nurse, but it isn’t clear whether or not she was employed at the time.

In the 1926 City Directory for St. Paul, Minnesota, Lillian E. McGinnis is listed as a nurse both living and working at 899 Grand Avenue. In the 1927 City Directory for Indianapolis, Mrs. Lillian McGinnis is listed as a nurse at the Marion National Sanitarium, a veterans’ hospital. In the 1930 census, she is listed in Lake City, Florida, as Lillian E. McGinnis, a widow, working as a nurse at the U.S. Veterans Hospital there and living in the hospital quarters.

Lillian McGinnis married a man named Jacob L. Bucklew in 1931 in Florida. Bucklew was also marrying for the second time. The marriage apparently didn’t work out, and by the time of her death at age 47 on August 28, 1936, Lillian was living in Asheville, North Carolina working at a veterans’ hospital there. Her body was returned to Bedford and she was buried in this grave at Beech Grove Cemetery.

According to unknown sources, her brother George had such an intense dislike of Lillian’s second husband that he wouldn’t put the name Bucklew on her gravestone, so her stone reads only “Lillian E.”

07/25/2023

LaVonda Tincher has 4 burial plots in Beech Grove Cemetery for sale. Please pm her for details.

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