To get to our daughter-in-law's parents' home, we must pass through the quaint town of Sebastopol and its historic cemetery (1859).

There is history here as the town was formed in the 1850s with a Post Office and as a small trade center for the farmers in the surrounding agricultural region. As California's population swelled, after the westward migration and the Gold Rush of the 1850s, more and more settlers drifted into the fertile California valleys north of San Francisco to try their hand at farming. The name of Sebastopol first came into use in the late 1850s, reflecting empathy to Russia because of the long British siege of the Russian seaport of Sevastopol, during the then-raging Crimean War (there are quite a few Russians buried here).

The Middelton Brothers' gravestone was the oldest we found, on our brief explore (1862).

Mr. Fowler's marker was made of wood. I couldn't find more about him but there are still Robert Fowlers in town.
There are a ton of Italians interred here. The Albini family has 28 members resting here, alone.




Okay, so this had to be my favorite memorial and I thought I'd share a little about Mrs. Miller. "Georgia died in her sleep, at the age of 92. Born in Freestone in 1912, she was the daughter of George W. and Jessie Beach Lawrey. She was raised and adopted by Joseph and Gertrude Borba after the death of her mother, in 1913. It was while attending Analy High School that the gorgeous Georgie Borba, an award winning typist with a flapper hairdo, attracted the attention of a basketball player with a highly developed work ethic named Rodney Miller. They were married in 1933, two years after she graduated from high school. She used her typing and bookkeeping skills to help their business, Millers Trucking Service, survive the Great Depression and become a 45 year success". So dang sweet, right?