In Memoriam: Marc Houseman

In the summer of 2008, I did an internet search of my infamous great-grandmother. I’d written The Tainted Legacy of Bertha Gifford a few years before, but hadn’t found a publisher willing to take a chance on the memoir, so every summer after school let out, I would spend time scrolling through online junk about her, just to see if anyone else had written anything extensive about Bertha. I had all but given up on getting the book published. That summer, I happened upon an online blurb announcing that some guy named Marc Houseman would be giving a presentation on her. Who does this guy think he is? was my first thought. My second thought was, I wonder what crap he’s feeding people about her.

Another quick online search led me to the website for the Washington Historical Society in Washington, Missouri. Seems this Houseman guy was a so-called historian there. I found an email address on the site and shot off a short missive, stating tersely that if he was going to be doing presentations on my great-grandmother, he’d better be basing them on facts, not fiction. He replied within the hour—calmly, professionally, kindly—and we began to exchange information via email about Bertha, about my family, and about Marc’s interest in those subjects.

Thus began a close and dear friendship that I will cherish forever, which is why I’ve spent the past week mostly crying. Because Marc Houseman has left us, passing on to begin his next journey. And I’m here to tell you, it’s damned unfair.

Ten years my junior, Marc was an extraordinary man, brilliant, personable, humble and self-effacing, with a strong sense of honor for the dead and an equally strong love of donuts. He, along with my cousin Danny, encouraged me to pull out my memoir about Bertha and do whatever I needed to in order to get the book published, which I did.

A year after I met Marc online, I met him in person. After Tainted Legacy was published in October of 2008, we planned a book tour for the following summer, and he helped me connect with several libraries so that I could do speaking and signing events. During the year, we had gotten to know each other pretty well through our email exchanges, and I had begun signing my emails to him “Hugs, K.” He responded in kind. When I arrived in Missouri for the book tour, Marc came to pick me up at my hotel in Pacific. I was a bit nervous waiting for him in the lobby since I had never actually met him in person, but when he walked in carrying a sign that said “REAL HUGS,” my laughter quickly dissipated any anxiety.

That summer, we established a pattern that would be blissfully repeated nearly every summer for a decade. Marc was my tour guide, driving me along the back roads of rural Missouri to cemeteries where my kinfolk were buried so I could pay my respects and take photos of their very old headstones. One summer, prior to my trip back there, I told him in an email I was interested in researching my maternal grandfather’s ancestry. When I arrived in Missouri that year, he met me in the lobby of the hotel carrying a file folder. He handed it to me. “That’s your grandfather’s line,” he said, “going all the way back to the Revolutionary War.” Then we climbed into his truck, and he took me to as many cemeteries as he had been able to discover in which those ancestors were buried.

Marc loved the Three Stooges, such was the corny, quirkiness of his sense of humor. He also loved studying the Presidents of the United States—prior to Eisenhower. He loved old things and old people. He was kind with the elderly and gentle with the young. He loved old hymns. Once, after we’d strolled a cemetery for a half hour or so in relentless humidity, he approached the door of the church on the property. “Look,” he said, pulling the door, “it’s open.” There was nothing inside but the old church organ. He sat down and to my great surprise, began to play “The Old Rugged Cross.” Somehow a few words to that song still exist in my memory, so I sang what I could recall, and Marc joined in. Thereafter on our road trips to far-away cemeteries, we would often sing hymns or "old timey" songs.

To list all of Marc’s accomplishments would take many pages. He was the director of the museum in Washington and president of the historical society. He regularly led a crew of volunteers to do cemetery restoration (righting and/or repairing fallen or broken headstones, or simply cleaning them—turns out there’s a right way and a very wrong way to do those things). He was deeply involved with the Odd Fellows chapter in his town where he was loved and respected for all the work he did to honor the dead and to enable others like myself to discover the fascinating stories behind their ancestry.

Marc was the main (and mighty) force behind the monumental task of fundraising for and building a columbarium in the Odd Fellows cemetery. On one of my trips back there, Marc had taken me into the basement of a crematorium. A shelf against one wall held a couple dozen small cardboard boxes. “Those,” he told me, “are cremains that were never claimed.” It happens. Someone’s family member dies and is cremated, but no one ever picks up the ashes. And so they simply sit. The dates on those boxes were decades old. Marc’s hard work resulted in an aesthetically beautiful columbarium where abandoned ashes would have a home. But his work didn’t stop there. Once the columbarium was completed and they began to receive unclaimed cremains, Marc and his volunteers would search online to find the families of the deceased. In several instances, the cremains were those of military veterans. In one such case, Marc not only returned the cremains to a grateful niece, he arranged to have them buried at Jefferson Barracks, a veterans cemetery near St. Louis, with a proper memorial service and military honors for the deceased. (To read an equally sweet story that also explains the intent of the Odd Fellows fraternity, click here.)

The gentleman on the left is Ron Shaver. He and Marc are unloading another shipment of unclaimed cremains inside the columbarium. Yep, each one of those boxes holds the ashes of a forgotten or abandoned deceased individual.

See what I mean? What a classy guy. I say again through tears, it’s just not fair.

To me, Marc will always be that goofy guy who loved the story of my great-grandmother, the cool friend who would take time out of his busy schedule to escort me around to places I would never have found on my own, cemeteries that can’t be found on most maps. He was an incredible source of knowledge, he was a sweet soul, and he was one of the dearest friends I’ve ever had. To say he will be missed is a profound understatement. I simply do not know how to order my life without him in it.

Why are Marc and I smiling over someone's headstone? Because local lore had it that, due to her alleged crimes, my great-grandmother's grave "should go unmarked for fifty years." I would not have known that had I not met Marc. When he told me, I did some quick figuring; fifty years past her death would have been 2002. In the summer of that year, I wrote the first draft of Tainted Legacy. Six years later I met Marc, the book was published, and we worked together to finally put a stone on her grave so that my great-grandchildren, should I be blessed to one day have some, will one day be able to find her. I have also buried some of my mother's ashes there as well.

 

This very special trip to Missouri

The Bend Bridge over the Meramec River

Good grief and hallelujah, it was so great to get back to Missouri after an absence of two years. Two years! How did I let the summer of 2016 slip past without a quick trip to see the folks I love? This trip was all the sweeter for the absence, but mostly because this guy came with me:

We are posed here in front of the infamous "big red barn" on Old Bend Road just a few yards from the farmhouse where my mother lived for a while with her grandmother, Bertha Gifford. Showing my son the farmhouse where his grandmother lived, where some of her ashes are scattered, was one of the highlights of this trip for me. He said later, as we were driving away, that he felt "serene." This did not surprise me; it is the same feeling I've always had after spending time at the farmhouse. Others see it as the "House of Mystery" and some have claimed to have seen apparitions here. I've never felt any presence other than light and peace. We were fortunate that Tim Fiedler, owner of the farm with his sister, Joyce, was gracious enough to walk us through the old farmhouse... and I could show my son where his grandmother, eighty years ago or so, took the mule upstairs to her bedroom....

In the foreground here is Ginger Collins Justus, one of the most amazing people on the planet, and next to her is Marc Houseman, historian extraordinaire and also one of the most amazing people in my life. Ginger took this photo while I was demonstrating some very complex karate moves. 

Marc and Ginger are trusted companions while I'm in Missouri, introducing me to countless interesting places, adventures and food items:

Marc is in his favorite pose here--resting in peace--at a beautiful old mausoleum that we wandered through. This was after we'd had lunch "on The Hill" in St. Louis, an Italian community so strong I wondered why my cousins hadn't moved down from Illinois to live here:

The day before, they also introduced me to deep fried pickle chips. Yes, Missouri, good job!

More than menu choices, though, I was deeply grateful for their help with the two speaking engagements I did, hosted by the libraries in Pacific and Sullivan. Marc answered questions and helped with book sales, Ginger did the same--and took photos:

Folks turned out in large numbers to hear more about Bertha Gifford. To me, the most treasured person present was David Gail Schamel. His older half brothers, Elmer and Lloyd Schamel, died while under the care of my great-grandmother. Mr. Schamel always shows up when I speak in Pacific, and he is always incredibly gracious, sharing photos of his brothers and this time, a photo of his beautiful great-granddaughter. I always look forward to these events as they give me the opportunity to meet readers face to face, some of them, like Mr. Schamel, direct descendants of people who were living in Catawissa or Pacific in those same decades Bertha lived there. The night I spoke at "The White Chapel" in Sullivan (photo directly above), I also met young Emma. She asked a question during the Q & A portion ("Does anyone still live in Bertha's house?"), and after the event came up to give me the portrait she drew of me while I was speaking:

It's a pretty true likeness, don't you think?

It's probably clear why some of these Missouri folks have become true friends over the years. Their warmth, grace and acceptance encourages and inspires me, and makes me yearn every year, as spring folds into summer, to see them once again.