I arrived in Westminster on Saturday, after spending the night in Frederick. I drove first to the Best Western to check on hotel arrangements. I didn’t have a reservation for Saturday night, but was fortunate because while standing at the desk someone cancelled for that night so a room was available. After making arrangements, I drove out to Good Friendship Farm (it is on the National Historic Registry) to say hello to Beckie, Nick, Stephen and Pepper. Nick and Beckie Herrick are friends met through the Roop/Royer association, initially at Roop/Royer reunions. I didn’t see either of the people when I first arrived, but Stephen, the German shepherd watched me from the front porch as a I approached. As I got near the house, Nick showed up on a 4-wheeler and we drove down to the pond, where Beckie was cleaning out algae. We walked up to the house together while she told me of all the things that had to be accomplished before her youngest daughter’s wedding next weekend. The three of us chatted for a while, then went indoors for lunch. I said hello to Pepper, their 14-year old black Lab. He acted like he recognized me, because he parked himself right under my feet while I had lunch. After lunch, I returned to the hotel and moved my stuff into my room. I called Gary but no answer, so I left a message. A second message as it turned out.
Roger Gary Roop was born in January, 1931, so he was more than a decade older than me, but we shared an interest in genealogy and talked a lot about the possible origins of the Roops in Germany and Switzerland. His companion, Joanne, lived in the same retirement facilities, Carroll Lutheran Village, just South of Westminster on state highway 31. While he was able, Gary would go to the original Rupp Cemetery in Lancaster and maintain it: cut the grass, prop up the fallen headstones, pull weeds, repair the wall and gate, etc. But he suffered from back pains so he had to quit doing that. Part of my reason for this trip was to return a disk that Gary had loaned me with videos of Julia Roop Cairns talking about the things she had learned about the Roop family in Carroll County. On Sunday I spent most of the day on the Pelican Brief, but was worried about not hearing back from Gary, so I drove to Carroll Lutheran Village and asked one of the residents about Gary. Then I learned that he had died just a few days before I arrived in Westminster. Grief. I have lost a good friend and I will miss him.
I returned to Good Friendship Farm to hand off the DVD to Beckie to give to Gary’s son, Roger Thor Roop, and told her about what I had learned. I didn’t stay around after that, I needed time alone and they had much to do.
On Monday I got up and drove to the Meadow Branch Brethren Church to visit the Cemetery and take pictures of gravestones, as part of my preparation for the third genealogy book, tentatively titled: The Roop-Royers of Carroll County. The first book has the descendants of Christian; the one in draft covers the descendants of Joseph and David; the last will feature the descendants of John, who married Catherine Royer, and Anna, who married Peter Royer. I found headstones for three of the four and photographed them, but I couldn’t be sure about Catherine’s headstone. Surely it would be next to John’s, but what was there was small and I couldn’t read the inscription. So I walked into the Meadow Branch Church and struck up a conversation with Amy Bell, the pastor, who just happened to be an IT instructor at the local college. While the church and cemetery are obviously related, there is a separate association for each, so she gave me the name of the person to call, Matt Black, and he sent me a link to Catherine’s grave on Find-A-Grave. I pulled it up on my computer, and sure enough, it was the little headstone right next to John’s. I learned, while talking to folks in the church, that Meadow Branch would celebrate its 200th anniversary in four years. Before there was a building, the congregation would meet in the homes of Christian Royer and David Roop, respectively, Peter and Anna’s oldest son and John and Catherine’s oldest son. Hope I’m able to get back to the celebration.
I spent the rest of the day between the Historical Society (which wasn’t officially open, but they checked on my membership and let me buy a couple of things from the store) and the library. Tomorrow I will drive down to see Peggy and Jock.