Cemetery Musings for Veteran's Day
Cemetery Musings
My husband and I often walk through the Center Cemetery. When we first moved to North Hampton, the names meant nothing to us – they weren’t “our” family names. Gradually, that changed.
We had bought the Lieutenant Jonathan Hobbs house, site of the first parsonage. There is a partial basement under the old portion of our house giving us the dimensions of the original smaller building that was moved nearer the Meetinghouse on the Town Common in 1763. The first gravestone we sought, of course, was that of North Hampton’s first minister, Nathaniel Gookin. He has a terrific one.
We then began to recognize family names of people we met. There were Seaveys, Leavitts, more Hobbs, and so on. We also began “adopting” graves. We would stop to water wilting plants or right the toppled plastic pots that, once dry, blow over easily. We’d uncover the seemingly neglected rabbit sculpture on one flat stone.
Then we found Frank. Our Frank is Francis M. Carter. A World War II veteran, his stanchion holding the small American flag was broken, and the flag invariably drooping toward the ground. We would right it, every time, and in fact, made a point of walking that particular path just to make sure it / he was OK. We’d also say “hello” to other vets along the same path -- George and Noble and, for the longest time, I thought Grace but she’s for another blog.
I always wondered about Frank – younger than my dad but who also served in the Pacific. Much to my delight, I learned a bit about him when Dave O’Brien digitized the North Hampton Woman’s Club World War II scrapbook, now available on the Historical Society website as images and as a movie. There’s an excellent photograph of Frank, a good-looking young man with glasses. I was excited to put a face to a name. I now know something of his wartime service but nothing else. What about the rest of his life? If anyone can fill in the blanks, please drop by some Thursday afternoon -- the Historical Society’s Curators Working Group will be hard at work in the Town Offices’ conference room.
And, while I may be partial to Frank, we would appreciate learning more about all North Hampton’s World War II veterans – stories, images, letters.
About Frank. The stanchion was repaired or replaced so we no longer feel the need to visit quite so often.
Thanks to Priscilla Leavitt, I now know that Francis M. Carter was one of three sons of George C. Carter and his first wife, Martha Page. After his wife’s death, George married Marion Lane in 1937. She was North Hampton Town Clerk from 1942 until her death in 1962. The Clerk’s Office was in their home, the house located across Atlantic Avenue from today’s Library. As to Francis, still no personal information but Priscilla thinks he was always called Francis.