"If Uncle Jack hadn't been there "
That was the recurring thought for Dana Bradley who visited Jefferson City with her 98-year-old father Bill Wheeler this week to attend Saturday's Historic Cemetery Walking Tour.
The tour, hosted by the Cemetery Resource Board and the Friends of the Governor's Mansion docents, at the Woodland-Old City Cemetery was designed to tell Jefferson City's history through the stories of those interred there.
For the Wheeler family, it became their own "It's a Wonderful Life" story 90 years in the making.
Wheeler and his daughter traveled from Georgia, and his brother, Thomas Wheeler, came from Tennessee. They met with several of their extended family members before the tour.
That's when they learned from family historian Doris Schmutzler why their brother John (Jack) Wheeler died at a young age in 1919.
It was a question they held but a topic not mentioned, Bradley said.
His obituary said: "Jack Wheeler, four-year-old hero, who about a month ago saved his 19-month-old brother from drowning in Wears Creek near the family home died after an illness of diphtheria and scarlet fever."
The Dec. 14, 1919, newspaper went on to say he was a "favorite of the neighborhood and an unusually bright little fellow."
In November 1919, little Billy and his older brother Jack were playing on the creek bank when Billy waded out and fell into the water.
"Jack without a moment's hesitation, waded into the water and half-dragged and half-carried his brother to safety," the account continued. "The least hesitation on part of the little hero would have meant his brother's death."
Bradley said this week her father realized for the first time his brother died because he jumped into the cold water to save him.
Bill Wheeler went on to serve in the U.S. Air Force, retiring as a colonel. He had three children, including Bradley.
"If Uncle Jack hadn't been there "
"I am really grateful for this; I'm so glad we're here," she said of the cemetery tour, which helped bring them the answer.
Other stories of those buried were told by more than 35 docents and volunteers and another 40 were written down on placards next to the headstones.
For example, Mark Schreiber told the Parsons family story - how Adolphus, the last private secretary to President Thomas Jefferson, and his wife, Patience, brought their family from North Carolina to Jefferson City in 1836. Their son M.M. Parsons was a state representative and senator, as well as captain during the Mexican War, before rising to brigadier general in the Confederate Army.
The Parsons Home on Jackson Street today is the oldest standing structure in the city, "the last remnant of the old Jefferson City," Schreiber said. Six family members are buried in the cemetery.
Also, a placard told Daniel Colgan's story. By his death in 1848 at age 50, he had built the first Capitol and operated the earliest store in the city. He was among the 31 residents in the town when the Legislature met for the first time in 1826.
More than 300 visitors walked the gravesites Saturday.
About 100 attended the opening event, the dedication of a monument for Carrie Crittenden, the daughter of Gov. Thomas Crittenden and who at age 9 became the only child to die in the Governor's Mansion, in 1882 of diphtheria.
Her original marker had been lost, then rediscovered by city cemetery board President Nancy Thompson. So the mansion docents decided a new, taller marker was in order.
Docent Terry Ehrsam told the story of the James and Younger gangs running from the law as Gov. Crittenden pushed for their capture. Threats were sent to the governor of kidnapping his youngest daughter. Those in the mansion, as well as the community, kept an extra eye on her.
So her death at Christmastime affected the entire city. Months later, Frank James turned himself in.
"We feel like we're stewards of the stories," said Rebecca Gordon, executive director of the mansion friends group. "Not only of the governors' stories but how they impacted their friends and the community."