Saturday, June 6 was a beautiful day for the dedication of the tombstone for Major Sylvanus Wright Curtiss, who was a Civil War soldier from Monroe who did not have a marker on his grave. Several GSMC members were in attendance to witness the moving ceremony conducted by the John S. Cosbey Camp 427 of the Sons of Union Veterans of Civil War. Rick Danes led the ceremony which mirrors those which were conducted by the Grand Army of the Republic in the early twentieth century.

Eric Mueller, 2nd great grandson of Sylvanus W. Curtiss and his wife, Emily Ann Howe, arranged to have markers placed on his ancestors' graves. Those graves had gone unmarked for over 110 years, until Jane Sommer, a member of GSMC, uncovered some records in Woodland Cemetery burials that proved that Sylvanus and Emily were, in fact, interred in Woodland, but had no markers.

Eric Mueller and Jane Sommer

Kudos to Jane Sommer and Lo Marie D'Arpini for all their work in Woodland to determine those buried in the cemetery without markers!