"OUR MOTHER LURANA"

As I said, I have a lot of family lines from southeastern Massachusetts
and many members are buried in the local cemeteries, my Dunham
cousins at the Mt Vernon Cemetery right here in Abington, for example,
There are cousins from other families buried there as well. Two of
those are the Packards and Edsons.

The first Edson headstone I found actually belongs to a woman
who married into the family:

The inscription reads:
"Our Mother
Lurana
Wife of
Joel Edson
Died June 17. 1875
Aged 78 yrs, 2 mo.
7days
Gone to her rest.".

Usng that information I looked up Joel Edson(1763-1830) over at
Rootsweb and  discovered he was from the Bridgewater area( most
of the family in Massachusetts are from there) and that Lurana was
named Lurana Jones. She was born 10Apr 1797 which matches
the information on the headstone, and she was Joel Edson's second
wife.

Joel/s first wife was named Hannah Packard. She died in 1818 and
Joel married Lurana two years later in 1820.

While I can't find any record of children born to Joel and Lurana, I
did find that Joel and Hannah had four children who would have
been adults when their mother died and their father remarried. I'm
guessing from the inscription that Lurana had been loved by her
stepchildren. I haven't seen Joel's headstone at Mt Vernon and he
probably is buried at one of the cemeteries in the Bridgewaters.where
he died.

As I suspected, Joel is a cousin, although I don't know yet to what degree.
Hus 2x great grandparents are my 9x great grandparents.Samuel Edson
and Susannah Orcutt. Likewise, Hannah Packard is another cousin. Her
great grandparents are my 7x grandparents Zacheus Packard and Susan
Howard.

While there are other Edsons buried nearby but none of them are Lurana's
stepchildren. Perhaps the other family members are the grandchildren
and great grandchildren of Joel Edson, and the headstones of earlier
generations toppled over and are buried beneath  dirt and grass as
Lurana's eventually will be.