Araminta

Armstrong Cemetery in Morrow County, Ohio is not the smallest graveyard I have visited, but it is tiny. Fewer than a dozen gravestones stand there today.

I nearly drove past it.

The sandstone marker at the grave of Araminta Conger (d. 1842) tilts to the left and has a few nicks here and there, but the large willow carving remains strikingly well defined. The inscription is still easy to read—especially in mid-afternoon sunlight.

In Memory
of Araminta
Wife of William
Dennis Conger
Who died June
1^st 1842 Aged
22 ys 5 Mo
& 22 ds.
I pulled a few weeds growing at the base of the stone to read what at first glance appeared to be an epitaph. Then I realized that Araminta’s gravestone identified not only her husband, but also her parents:

Daughter of Arc-
hibald & Sarah
Bishop

When a wife dies at such a young age, I am always curious about whether (when? if?) the husband remarried. So it was a search for William Conger in the 1850 Federal Census for Morrow County that yielded this interesting record for the Archibald Bishop household:

Is Dennis Conger, eight years old in 1850, the son of William Dennis Conger and Araminta Bishop Conger?

I’m thinking yes, which makes me wonder whether Araminta died in childbirth, or from complications afterwards. Possible.

Of course, I would not want to draw conclusions without more research (well, I might want to, but I won’t). I will leave that research to others.

After all, there are so many more cemeteries to explore.
 

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Armstrong Cemetery, Morrow County, Ohio