Credit - RECORD PHOTO: Mike Louviere
Chet
Cuccia at the gate of the Turner Cemetery.
Slide Show
Passing by the corner of Roundbunch Road and Morning
Glory, you may not have noticed the sign that says
“Turner” above the gate.
But if you have continued onto Morning Glory, you will
likely have noticed on the left side of the road a small,
well-kept cemetery.
Only about half the allotted land is occupied by 62 graves.
Chet Cuccia of Bridge City it one day, and decided to
investigate records to see who was buried there.
Cuccia had been accessing the Web site Find-A-Grave.com
for about a year and had posted some family members’
gravesites there.
He searched and found no records for Turner Cemetery.
One day he took a pen and pad and recorded names, birth
dates and death dates of all 62 graves. He then went home
and recorded all of the graves on the site.
By doing that, he made the cemetery available on World
Wide Web, which enables anyone to post pictures of the
graves or persons buried there.
Cuccia, at his own expense, purchased one-use cameras and
photographed all headstones in the cemetery.
“I hope that some family member will find out about
this and use the information that I have posted to see
where their family members are buried if they are living
out of town, or that someone doing genealogy research may
find the posted information to be of use,” he said.
“This has become a hobby. I have been posting
information on Find-A-Grave for over a year. I have worked
posting records for several families who have family
members buried in several cemeteries. I plan to do some
more with some of the older, smaller cemeteries in Orange County.
“When you work in these cemeteries you find out
various details about the deceased. I found a Civil War
Confederate veteran buried in Turner as well as Roy M.
Hatton, [for whom] Hatton Elementary is named after. You
never know what you will find. One reason I could do
Turner Cemetery is that it is so small. It was nice to be
able to do a whole cemetery.”
Cuccia has more than 200 memorials and 361 photographs
posted on Find-A-Grave.
If a person finds one of Cuccia’s postings and sees
Cuccia’s name underlined, he can click on the link
and see personal information about Cuccia.
Interestingly, Cuccia has posted his own burial profile.
His death date is listed as “unknown.” Other
details are available so that when his time comes, all one
will have to do is post the date of his death.
If a family member has a picture of one of the persons
buried in the cemetery, they can go to www.findagrave.com
and click on “Search for a cemetery.” They
would then need to enter “Turner” and click on
Turner Cemetery, Orange County, Bridge City, Texas.
When the proper persons burial records are found the
instructions will tell you how to post the picture or a
memorial message.
Any additional information about the burial or the
person’s profile will have to be added by Cuccia,
since he is the one that made the initial postings.
For more information, e-mail Cuccia at chetcuccia@hotmail.com.