Eric& Gretchen Kozen
THE SCENE: Oakdale Cemetery, June 25, 2004.
A long overdue ceremony to mark Grave No. 5,
Row No. 8 and honor Sgt. Broughton, Union
soldier, 2nd West Virginia Cavalry, who died
April 10, 1865. Gretchen is Sgt. Broughton’s
second great-niece. She’s flown in from
Pennsylvania for a beach vacation and this
ancestral gathering. She’s holding a box of
handwritten letters from Sgt. Broughton to his
mother and family, dated 1862-1865.
Eric is the superintendant of Oakdale Cemetery and
has outdone himself to give Sgt. Broughton a proper burial. And he’s
helping Gretchen maneuver the video camera.
HE: “OK, I’ll tell the story.”
SHE: “And I’ll provide the colorful commentary.”
HE: “So, I get a call in January 2004, from a gentleman named Carl.
He tells me he’s doing some genealogy research and that one of his
ancestors is a Union soldier. I tell him I’m really sorry, he’s not here; the
Union soldiers’ bodies had been moved to the National Cemetery. I even
call over there, but, unfortunately, they have no record of him. Then Carl
tells me he has proof of his relative being buried in Oakdale Cemetery, a
handwritten postcard with a picture: Sgt. Broughton Grave No. 5, Row
No. 8, buried April 10, 1865. So, we fill out the form for a Veteran’s
Monument and I tell Carl I’ll call him as soon as it comes in. Carl calls
me probably ten times in the next four weeks and finally it arrives. And
I assume that’s the end of it. Nope.
Carl calls a few days later and says, ‘I’d like to do a family-reunion
ceremony, bring in ancestors from England, relatives…’ So I get a
bagpiper who plays ‘Amazing Grace,’ the preacher finds a bible from
1865, we bring in the Daughters of the Confederacy’ —
WBM: For a Union soldier?
SHE: “Oh sure. If they can put on a hoop skirt, and go to a funeral,
they’ll do it!”
HE: “Next day, Monday, just another typical day. I’m getting ready to
head home when a car pulls up and a woman gets out. I remember think-ing,
‘Oh, that’s the girl with all the letters.’ She’d been kind of squirrely,
trying to juggle the letters, videotape the ceremony … I’d tried to give
her a hand in the heat. So she comes in, and my secretary is in the
room. Gretchen makes a little small talk, then she says, ‘I don’t usually
do this but would you like to go out to dinner?’ And you could hear the noise, as my
secretary’s jaw dropped and hit the desk.
SHE, WITH A LAUGH: “Oh, yeah. Because I’m so Yankee, and the secretary was so
Southern, you know, I wanted to thank him for getting the hoop skirts, and the bag-pipes.
And my cousin Leslie thought he was cute and poked me and whispered, ‘He
doesn’t have a ring on.’”
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WBM february 2013