Re: Frontier baby's grave may lie in tollway path


Bill wrote:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/091506dnccotollwaybody.2b8e7c9.html

Frontier baby's grave may lie in tollway path

Frisco: Crews find signs of old wooden casket along Lebanon Road

09:50 PM CDT on Thursday, September 14, 2006

By TONY HARTZEL / The Dallas Morning News

More than a century ago, a mournful family laid a stillborn girl to rest in
the fields of rural Collin County.

Over time, the traces of her resting place in the Sonntag Family Cemetery
virtually disappeared. Years ago, officials moved the remains of those
buried in the neglected old cemetery, but they may have overlooked the
infant girl's grave.

On Thursday, one of the family's descendants said he may have found what was
supposed to be her final resting place. And it sits right where bulldozers
are carving away the path of the Dallas North Tollway extension - smack dab
in the epicenter of growth in modern-day Frisco.

"There was a lost relative that for 105 years was forgotten," said Ben
Beckelman, a certified public accountant and part-time genealogist. "I'm
excited. We really don't know what all is there yet."

The possible grave sits in the middle of the future tollway extension at
Lebanon Road. Crews began carefully digging away earth about a week ago
after being alerted to the possible remains. Thursday, they found a piece of
marble, four rusty nails and a patch of darkened earth that would indicate a
wooden casket that rotted away over the decades.

"We believe where we are today is where the grave is," said Donna Huerta, a
spokeswoman for the North Texas Tollway Authority, which is building the
tollway extension.

An archaeologist and other officials on hand have not found any bones. They
don't expect to find any because of the time elapsed and because the body
was an infant. The possible grave site sat undisturbed in part because it
was directly under the Lebanon Road pavement.

Archaeological experts will work in a small area for several days. Officials
don't expect these events to delay the $264 million project or its September
2007 opening, Ms. Huerta said.

"It's not going to do anything," she said. "It's only a 20-foot area. That's
the only place where we have stopped right now. We're working around that."

Crews also found a water line within 3 feet of the possible grave and
another utility line nearby, Ms. Huerta said.

Cracking the case involved some old-fashioned legwork and some new
technology. Mr. Beckelman, a 41-year-old Frisco resident, used U.S.
Geological Survey information and a global positioning satellite locator to
guess the general area of the grave site. When the tollway authority closed
Lebanon Road a week ago for construction, everyone watched carefully as
workers started digging.

"I want to find any remains that may be there," said Mr. Beckelman, whose
ancestors came to Collin County around 1895 and lived in the community of
Lebanon, where Preston Road now sits. "We're excited we've found something
so far. But I think that's it. I don't believe there's anything else out
here."

Hmmm...even sticky situations are big in Texas.

I'm suspecting some scientist will get hold of the remains and "prove"
the individual to have been dead 15,000 years.

.

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