A little more than two years ago on a Google search I came across a cemetery near Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, that had been transcribed and posted online. Virtually everything I have been able to discover about my father's family in those two years has now been posted on this blog or on my website and none of it would have been possible without the online transcription of the Tilden Emanuel Cemetery where my great grandparents are buried. That cemetery was my point of departure, the solid lead I needed to find more leads and to confirm or verify other possibilities.
The person who transcribed that cemetery, Katherine Haake, is thanked and credited on my website for her effort. I also wrote a personal e-mail thanking her and I received a fairly prompt reply from her. She told me I could thank her by passing it forward, doing something with the information she had provided that might in turn be useful or helpful to someone else. I hope my website qualifies.
I didn't think to ask her who she was or why she might have been inspired to transcribe and post the Tilden cemetery. But I am fairly certain that she is the same Katherine Haake who is mentioned in a Rain Taxi review article written in 2002. I've read the review, but I haven't yet read her book, The Height and Depth of Everything. I plan to have a copy of it waiting for me in Seattle when I visit home a little more than a month from now.
3 comments:
That would be awesome if she is the author! I have no trace of most of my ancestors so I'm warmed to hear those who can trace their family history.
I would like to clear up the mystery for you. My name is Katherine Haake and I am the individual who transcribed the cemetaries in Chippewa County. My family is immensely interested in discovering our roots and as a service to others with the same interests, I chose to transcribe the Chippewa County cemetaries for my Girl Scout Gold Award. Sorry to disappoint you that I am not the writer Katherine Haake.
Thanks for clearing up that mystery for me. I hope you don't mind being mistaken for a published author. Is she related to you? The themes of her stories, natural catastrophes like volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods and forest fires, have strong parallels with the disruption caused by the Civil War in my ancestor's lives. Without your transcription I wouldn't have had a clue. Let me know if I can be of help to you in finding your family roots.
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