Day 3: Wednesday 26 March 2025

Our day began with a positive development. I noticed on my phone that it was syncing with my presumably lost fitbit, meaning that said fitbit must be somewhere in our room (and not lost in Knoxville as thought). A new search through our bags discovered it in the bottom of the bag holding our keurig and coffee. Mystery solved.

We began at St Joseph Catholic Church for daily Mass. St Joseph Parish in Conway is actually a large campus of buildings which includes the church, cemetery, grade school, middle school, and high school all co-located. The church is beautiful and has had continuous, 24 hour Eucharistic adoration for the past 30 years. Throughout the day everyone we met, even on the street, were exceptionally friendly and went out of their way to help us. After leaving Mass we met a parishioner, Carol Hambuchen, and asked where the parish office was located, only to learn that this week the office was closed due to Spring Break. After explaining the purpose of our visit and desire to locate David Anthony’s burial site, Carol escorted us to the cemetery and made some calls to get the name of the person who manages burial plots. She then directed us to a building across the train tracks which I presume to be the parish office but in reality was an endowment office for St Joseph’s School. She said there may be someone there, if we see a car, and they might be able help. Sure enough, there was a car so we checked it out. Here we met Jacqueline. Although she was not knowledgable about the cemetery plots, she made some calls and took my number to get back to me. She did have considerable knowledge of the history of St Joseph’s and had been a life-long parishioner. She gave us a history summary and showed us pictures from the 1950s when Conway was still very rural. Unfortunately, the man she called informed us there was no listing of David Anthony in his records. There are, however, many unmarked gravesites that had recently been confirmed to hold remains but have long since lost their markers.

We decided to check out the Faulkner County museum which advertised having mortuary records dating back to the time of David’s death. Perhaps the mortuary would have a record of the plot where David was buried.

Although the museum hours stated it should have been open, a paper note on the door stated it was only open on Tuesday and Thursday. I checked the door which was locked, but a gentleman inside opened it and let us in. He said ti was closed because they had just lost their full time curator and only volunteers (such as himself) were available. However, he told us to look around and he would wait a while. We asked about the mortuaruy records and he said that the archivist was who we wanted to see, but she was not in. Alas, no luck.

We walked through old town Conway and happened onto the Toad Suck Square. Another local asked if we were visitors and then proceeded to explain the Toad Suck festival and it’s history. Toad Suck is actually a town on the river near Conway. Turns out, a section of river that gets narrow and shallow is referred to as a suck and such an area was just down river from Conway where the ferry used to run. This area began having an annual festival which became known as the Toad Suck Festivial.. In 1990, because of flooding at the original location, the festival was moved to Conway where it has remained. It is a huge event which draws many vendors and fills the old town area for the week. If you are near Conway in early May, check it out.

We decided to see if our other Lachowsky relatives were in the Lachowsky section at St Joseph cemetery and we texted my first cousin once removed and self-made family geneologist,, Debbie Brigante (daughter of my cousin, Betty Brigante) to confirm our relatives identities. Thanks to Debbie, we found the location of my great grandparents, Edward and Catharine Lachowsky (David Anthony’s grandparents). Very near to them are several unmarked plots. One that I keep getting drawn to is a stone cross that has long ago lost the wood or metal name plate that identified the individual. Could this be David’s plot? Or perhaps he could have been buried with his maternal grandparents, Paul and Magdelena Loetscher. Again Debbie informed us that the Loetschers were buried in a public cemetery, Oak Grove cemetery. It was a half mile from St Joseph so we headed over there to see if we could find a Loetscher section. After a lengthy search, we finally discovered the very small headstones for both Paul and Magdelena side by side. They were the only Loetschers we found. Curiously, right next to them is the buried remnant of a third headstone broken off at ground level. Could this be David, or perhaps his aunt Antoinette Loetscher who died in childhood? Interestingly, Antoinette’s death certificate specifies her burial in Conway at St Joseph Cemetery but David’s death certificate only states burial in Conway without a specific cemetery identified. We’ll likely never know for sure. Debbie then informed us that, after Paul was murdered, the Loetscher family left Conway and moved to Colorado Springs. This is likely why there are no other Loetschers in Oak Grove.