Here we can surmise that the brick sidewalks crossed the dirt roads back in the day. See them protruding up through the worn out asphalt of a side street.

More of Lawrence Zerr's handiwork can be found on buildings like this one in the village center of Stewardson, IL.

All these bricks were exciting, but I was interested in seeing his name somewhere, so I marched in vain through three cemeteries, Grace Cemetery, St.Pauls Cemetery, and Lower Ash Grove Cemetery. Certain names appear in all three of these places - names of large families that had long histories and numerous generations without leaving the county - mostly German Lutherans such as Kull, Weber, Storm, Ruff, Ulmer, Doering, Buesking - but no Zerr.

Lower Ash Grove Cemetery was my favorite setting. An abandoned church building with broken windows amidst the most peaceful hardwoods and not another soul in sight. But also no sign of Zerr's gravestone.At St. Paul's Cemetery, "high" on a hill above the plains (about 65 feet elevation!), you can see the flatness of the great midwest prairie landscape. Strasburg is about 1 mile off in the distance. Still no Zerr gravestone.

I thought the church might have records of their burials, so I went to visit the church secretary who was kind enough to show me the records. All of the burials were entered by hand into a journal. The sermon language was recorded as well (until the 20th century most of the sermons were given in German). But still no record that Lawrence Zerr was a member of this Lutheran church (Lutheran happened to be pretty much the only game in town for most of his life; although there were two churches of the same denomination).

The day was getting old and I had to drive to St. Louis. But on my way out of Shelby County I just decided to try and find one more cemetery.



By far the largest of all, Stewardson cemetery was also the best kept. In fact, a groundskeeper was mowing the grass when I drove up. It was daunting to have to walk all the gravestones since I had already logged a few miles in the other ones earlier in the day. Plus, given my strike-out percentage at those previous places, I wasn't very hopeful. So I decided to drive very slowly and never get out of my seat unless I spotted something promising. Only a minute into the drive I spotted it. Plain as day, prominent on a high corner was the name I came to see.