Saint John's Lutheran Cemetery: the township's one church ground

HEADED "EST. 1865"; THE SHENEMAN DATES IN CONFLICT (C119); SETTLES HALF OF G-RL-14

At the northeast corner of Riley and Pine Roads, at the same corner as the present St. The county record places it (SW ¼, Sec. 6, T35N, R2E; 41.50747, −86.35066), and the St. Joseph County INGenWeb page carries a full row-by-row reading of it — 22 rows, rows parallel to Pine Road, with photographs — headed "ST. JOHN'S LUTHERAN CHURCH CEMETERY — EST. 1865 — Liberty Township," the ground active into 2014 on the reading's own latest dates. Its earliest deaths print exactly as carried, anomalies flagged and not resolved: John Rupert, d. 1843 (Row 13); Mary Bickell, d. 2 February 1854 (Row 7); and William McEndarfer, d. 31 May 1829, aged 2 years 8 months — a date predating both the stated 1865 establishment and the township's settlement, printed as the reading carries it (a misread stone is the obvious candidate explanation; this section does not adopt it). An 1865 establishment with an 1843 stone is the same burial-before-organisation shape as Porter-Rea's, printed as a parallel, not as proof of either. The reading's Row 9 puts the ground into conflict with the county history (C119, whole): the stones read Sheneman, Frederick — d. March 28, 1879, aged 74 yr 10 mo 8 da — and Sheneman, Elizabeth — d. May 26, 1890, wife of Frederick; the banked People register, from Howard, carries Frederick Sheneman d. 28 March 1876 and Elizabeth (Friedland) Sheneman d. c. 1885, "both parents buried in the Lutheran cemetery." Same day and month for Frederick, the year three apart; Elizabeth's c. 1885 against the stone's 26 May 1890. Neither carrier corrects the other here; the register's course is its own to reconcile if it chooses, and the identification of Howard's "the Lutheran cemetery" with this ground is supported by the names' presence in its rows — stated as that support, at that strength. The congregation's records crosswalk to the county library system (the banked libraries file); the cemetery's own lot book, if one is kept, was not reached. The ground's continuity with the 1880 German Lutheran church of the county histories is supported — by the 1865 establishment and the German-name stone population — but not proven.

SBAGS locations file; INGenWeb, "St. John's Lutheran" (ingenweb.org, read whole), with the parallel GenealogyTrails partial reading (Martin/Wahlfeld, 2007–2008); banked Notable People (Howard, Part 76); banked Libraries crosswalk.