On this day in 1867...

I stopped at a small family cemetery a few weeks ago that I had never explored and found this fallen stone.  Luella Goodwin, age 12, and her sister Emma, age 8, died of drowning on July 13, 1867.  I was touched by it and decided to go back and lay some flowers at their graves on the anniversary of their deaths.  Their fathers stone was nearby and I saw that he was a Civil War veteran.  It made the story even more poignant.   He survived that bloody war only to lose his daughters two years after his return.  There are hundreds of these small family cemeteries in Maine.  James Goodwin had a fresh American flag at his stone.  Veterans from all wars in every cemetery across the country receive them every May for Memorial Day but the little girls were forgotten until today that is.