Guns and Saws

As promised, a little update on Henry Mar, who had a gunsmithing and saw sharpening business on first street, just a couple of houses down from Brenda Simmons. 

Unbeknownst to me, he is buried in the Catholic Cemetery.  On my numerous trips out there, I have never noticed his grave. 

As youngsters, we speculated that because of his peculiar gait, he was perhaps 70 years old.  We were, fortunately, mistaken, as we did not know that he had muscular dystrophy.  The obituary of his wife noted that she helped him with his business because of that difficulty.  His affliction undoubtedly caused him much distress.  A search at the library disclosed that he was born on March 27, 1913, and died on February 18, 1987.  The library made that search relatively easy.  They have virtually all of the obituaries that have been listed in the Brookings County newspapers listed alphabetically by year in a well-organized card catalogue.  If one knows the approximate year of an individual's death, it is not too difficult to find out the exact date, assuming that the obituary is in the paper.  While finding his obituary, we also came upon the obituary of his mother, who passed away eight years earlier on May, 13, 1979.  She was born on August 12, 1889, just a few months before statehood was granted to South Dakota on November 2, 1889. 

The reason that we had trouble finding the obituary of Jerry Johnson  last summer was that his obituary was not listed in the card catalogue.  By going to a local funeral home, we were told of the date of his death and even the location of his grave in the First Lutheran Cemetery.  When we found his obituary in the Brookings Register, we informed the library so they could include his name in their card catalogue.