Finding Bobby Glenn McCarley

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 31  (Aug 2 - 8)
Prompt: Help
#52ancestors

I can't tell you how many times that I've yelled "help" when doing research. When I do, someone almost always steps up and gives me ideas of what to do next or gives me a clue pertaining to a mystery. Sometimes, they just encourage me to keep going.  Liking and commenting on my genealogy posts gives me encouragement to continue writing and researching.

My post on September 16, 2020 was about a "road trip" when my Uncles helped me find the cemetery where an infant was buried in 1938. Before my Grandmother passed, she expressed her regrets in not knowing where her son was buried in Denton Cemetery.  That has caused me over the years to keep a watch out for more information about Bobby Glenn. 

This week, newspapers.com helped me find an obituary for Bobby Glenn in the Marlow Review.  I had not actively searched for one because according to what I was told, he was born at home and his Dad and Grandmother took him to the cemetery to be buried.  I was shocked to discover an obituary and a funeral service while searching for mentions of my family in social clubs in the area.

The newspaper article differs greatly from the account I heard from my mother, who was 8 years old at the time. To my great surprise, it listed a funeral home and a pastor who conducted the service.  Doing a DuckDuckGo search (Google wasn't helpful), I found that Steele Funeral Home filed as a Domestic For Profit Business Corporation  on November 28, 1936. It expired on November 28, 1956.  There was no current online information about the Steele Funeral Home.

There was a funeral home listed in the local town so I sent them an email knowing that if I was very lucky that Steele Funeral home might have given their records to another local funeral home when they went out of business or they might know where the records were located. Sometimes a descendent of the original owner still has the records in their attic, basement, or barn.

I received an email the very next day telling me that they did have a file on Bobby Glen and they included a contact phone number for the person who had the records for Denton Cemetery.  Today, I received a copy of the funeral record for Bobby Glenn. It didn't have much information that I didn't already have, but did confirm the details in the obituary and included the cost of the funeral.  Their record stated that he was buried in Denton Cemetery but not which plot. 

I was disappointed to learn from the keeper of the Denton Cemetery records that Bobby Glenn is not listed on the plot map of the cemetery.  However, he was very helpful in looking for him.

Some of the information conflicts with what I was told by my Mother and Grandmother (Gladys McCarley), but it is possible that Bobby Glen was born at home and when he passed, he and his mother were taken to the hospital in Marlow, where he was declared dead. I still have hopes of someday knowing  Bobby Glenn's exact resting place.

With the help of my Mother, Grandmother, Uncles, Tara at Callaway Smith Cobb Funeral Home, and Charles, keeper of the Denton Cemetery plot map, I have been able to learn about an infant born too early.  

Bobby Glenn McCarley

Born: May 21, 1938 probably at home, near Central High, Stephens County, Oklahoma

Died: May 21, 1938 at hospital in Marlow, Oklahoma

Buried: May 21st 1938 at Denton Cemetery, Stephens County, Oklahoma

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