Since relating Great-grandfather Tom Patrick’s civil war story to his history class last year, Gary Patrick had become intensely interested in the Patrick family tree. Recently, with the help of an internet ancestry site, plus a few hours of a professional genealogist’s time, Mr. Patrick had discovered that the remains of one of Great-grandfather’s many brothers, Robert, was buried in an unnamed cemetery in East Texas, a few miles outside of Kilgore.

Robert Patrick was, from what he had learned, not as interesting or colorful as Tom and Uncle John, another of Gary’s recent ancestors and the subject of another story which he related to his students only a couple of weeks ago. As he drove up to the old graveyard on this hot, dusty East Texas October morning, he chuckled. Gary knew this would more than likely not be material for a third story to his advanced class concerning the Patrick family. Still, he was grateful for the superintendent’s permission to allow him to be away during conference week. He chuckled again when he thought of his threat to retire if permission was denied.