Road Trip to the Past - Day 6: “Itchin’ for Eaches” or “Peaks and Pitts-burgh”

We awoke the next day with renewed determination. First stop – Pittsburgh’s South Side Cemetery, the final resting place of Parris Eaches. Pittsburgh has a surprisingly diverse terrane of hills and flats that made navigation a challenge. Across the river from downtown, we found the cemetery in an older part of town. In the cemetery offices (yes, some larger cemeteries actually have offices) we met a very patient employee who helped us pour through the surprisingly detailed records for the locations of our relatives’ graves.

He highlighted the relevant residents’ final resting places on a map of the grounds. High winds were all that remained of the previous day’s storm, but that was enough to make our searching difficult. The first few groupings were easy to find. But after driving to the final area where we hoped to find Parris, we found nothing. Another "shy grave". We returned to the office to look closer at their records. The burial plot was clearly marked. But, after looking at other records, we discovered that these Eaches were buried without headstones or memorials of any kind.

My wife standing on the memorial-less plot of Parris Eaches.

I was really disappointed. I was really hoping to find evidence of Parris Eaches etched in stone. But genealogy can sometimes be a cruel companion.

Not far from the cemetery, my wife directed us to addresses she had recorded in her research. We found where Parris lived his last years. An older house stood on the spot, suggesting this could've been his house!

Not far away, we came to the childhood home of my wife’s grandmother. Old family photos matched the house. It was still here!

My father-in-law was thrilled to find this place. The gentrified neighborhood preserved the simple charm of the street where grandma would walk and roller-skate. The day was looking up! So we headed up!

Grandma had always told of her days walking around Pittsburgh and of riding the incline. So we found one of the two inclines still in operation. The Duquesne Inline (pronounced doo-KAIN) offers a fun trip to the past, up the hill to Mt Washington, and a great view of Pittsburgh!