“Interloper” Buried Between Somebody’s Great-Grandparents

When Rebecca (Burdick) Carley died at the G.A.R. Veterans Home in 1914, she was buried next to her husband of 55 years, Milo Carley.

Milo and Rebecca were married about 1857, probably in Winnebago County, WI.  Milo had recently arrived in Wisconsin from Oswego County, NY; while Rebecca was born in Wisconsin.  Her parents were one of the earliest settlers of Germantown, WI; they bought land there in 1836.

They had one son, William, who was 4 years old when Milo  enlisted in the Union Army on 15 Aug 1862.  He served in Company F of the 21st Wisconsin Infantry for almost three full years.  He was taken prisoner at the Battle of Stones River, but was paroled, exchanged, and returned to his unit.

After the war, he and Rebecca had four more children: Genevieve, Edwin, Susan, and Georgianna.

Milo must have suffered some health issues from his wartime service, because he was awarded a pension in 1878.  They were early residents of the G.A.R. Veterans Home in King; arriving there from Manawa on 30 Nov 1889.

Milo passed away in 1912 and was buried in the lot reserved for the 21st Wisconsin Infantry regiment, which is prominently located at the old entrance of the cemetery.  Two years later, Rebecca would be buried “next” to her husband.

For 65 years this married couple’s eternal slumber was undisturbed.

In the late 1970s, the original cemetery was rapidly filling up,  World War I veterans were dying at an only increasing rate, and the new “North” area would not be ready until 1981.

Apparently, cemetery officials were scouring the original half of the cemetery for any available gravesite.  They arrived at an incredibly indelicate solution: utilize the space between two older burials – even if those two burials were a married couple.

In 1979, Leonard Currier, a World War II veteran, died in Milwaukee – probably at the VA Medical Center.   His brother, Reuben, died in 1955 and was buried in Lot 15, Grave #70.  The grave next to him, #71, was available in 1979 – in fact, Grave #71 is available today.  (And, no reservation has been made for this grave.)

Instead of burying Leonard next to his brother in Lot 15, cemetery officials buried him between Milo and Rebecca Carley in Lot 21 INF.

Creating this “interloping” burial was not an accident.  Cemetery officials had buried a “stranger” between a married couples’ two graves at least 10 other times between 1970-1979.

Imagine you are a great-grandchild of the Carley’s and you visit their graves today.  You find their headstones, but installed in between them is a headstone for Leonard Currier.

You have to ask, “who was Leonard Currier, and why was he buried between my great-grandparents?”