I went to the visit my mother's grave, who died much too young, with my then teenage daughter. After placing flowers near her headstone, I followed the path through the old cemetary, by the same route which my mother had always led me. Her mother and father to the left, across were her granparents. Her paternal great-granparents, I remembered, were way down in the exact lower left of the graveyard, where every spring lily of the valley plants faithfully blossom. This was the grave of Benjamin F. Ashe and for the first time I noted that his wife was Sarah Keen. A couple of rows up and to the right , the delicately blooming rose bush marked the grave of his parents, 'John Ashe, Born in Scotland,' and, ' Polly Richardson', just as proudly, ' Born in Buckfield', the nearby village.

With a little bit of research at the Auburn Public  Library,  I discovered Sarah was a direct descendant of Anne Little, daughter of Richard Warren of the Mayflower.  I was hooked!  My daughters and I, and often their friends along for the ride, explored a myriad of cemetaries throughout that summer, even finding the private 'Bonney Yard', where Joshua Keen, who fought in the Revolutionary War, along with his wife Abigail Eames were laid to rest. As you probably well know, the research goes on.. and on...