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Mary Minerva Park (1822-1909)

Of course, I never knew Mary Minerva Park, in person that is. After all she was born 180 years ago as of 4 May in the year of our Lord 2002, my 43rd Birthday. And though I cannot begin to describe the feelings that I have in words, I have, during some quiet moments of my life, felt her unmistakable spiritual presence. Call it a God-given gift….I have no other explanation for this bond. It is as if she were an earthbound 3rd Great Grandmother that I've known all of my natural life. In my study of family history, I have seen wonderful ancient photographs of her and her children and grandchildren. The Grandmother to my Great Grandmother, Minerva Cobb-Durham (1886-1974) of Danville, Kentucky, Mary was known to welcome all into her and husband, Richard Cobb, Sr.'s (1818-1900) homestead known as “Castle Cobb” in Lincoln County, Kentucky. A gathering place where voices of laughter and glee could be heard year round. Mary Minerva was a Christian woman who was full of love, and to see her face and eyes—a wealth of wisdom too.

I believe it was only with Mary Minerva's guidance that I miraculously stumbled across the beautiful late-1800s oil portraits of her and husband, Richard in a vacant Lexington, Kentucky home in the Spring of 2001. These large portraits were not hanging from the wall; rather they were unceremoniously hidden on the floor; one behind an antique grand piano, the other beneath a window in a corner. Some family researchers and descendants had said that these portraits had been lost in a fire years ago, and so I had abandoned my search for all purposes. I also have a copy of Mary and Richard's marriage certificate, a testament to a union on earth of more than half a century—58 years to be exact, parted only by her husband's passing.

And it was Mary who spoke to me from the other side as I searched desperately for the final resting place of her Grandparents, my Kentucky Pioneer 5th Great Grandparents, Ebenezer Park (1747-1839) & Tabitha Mills (1752-1826). After all, many of their estimated 45,000 descendants had searched in vain for nearly a century for their graves, rumored to be somewhere on Drowning Creek in Eastern Madison County by late 1800s Park Historian, Nell Marshall Park-Gum. To many, including myself, their place of passing made absolutely no sense as Eb and Tab were living along Station Camp Creek (Middle Fork) in Estill County, Kentucky. Thus, the obvious question: Why would an elderly man (92 at time of death) move to another county so late in this life?

Mary's mouthpiece was a tiny scrap of paper I found lying at the bottom of an attic box in the Special Collections and Archives at Eastern Kentucky University's Library in Richmond. It was a brief but meaningful diary account, in which Mary told a family story nearly lost forever. You see, this matriarch was but less than 4 years of age, when cries of desperation and the loud prayers of an elderly man woke her from a sound sleep during a cool, crisp Fall night on 15 October 1826. She stumbled out of bed and entered her family's living area, carefully taking a seat alongside the fireplace, where embers burned in an otherwise darkened room. Still half awake, yet scared and confused, little Mary watched and listened to the clamor as her grandmother (Tabitha) drew her last breath in a bed close by. Her tall, and somewhat lanky grandfather (Ebenezer), hands raised in the air, prayed vociferously for God's mercy at his wife's bedside, as her spirit left her body.

It was something Mary had never forgotten. And because Mary's parents, Colonel Eli Park (1787-1858) and Winnaford Dillingham (1795-1854) actually lived in Eastern Madison County along Drowning Creek, her words did not fall upon deaf ears, as I now understood just why Eb and Tab had reportedly died along Drowning instead of Estill County's Station Camp Creek. They had in fact, moved in with their son, Eli to live out the final years of their full lives. So, it was Mary then, who led me to the graves of my Pioneer 5th Great Grandparents' in the woods, buried beneath yellow pine trees, felled by an ice storm three years before. There they lay, a short distance behind the site of her childhood home along Drowning Creek and the homestead where she and her husband, Richard, exchanged wedding vows at a noon wedding on 3 February 1842, followed by an elaborate breakfast.
It was a one-in-a-million discovery, in the form of a tiny, obscure piece of paper—the very road marker that guided me down a meaningful path to the two ancient stones in the wilderness that marked the long, lost final resting place of Ebenezer Park and Tabitha Mills. A revelation made possible at the hands of my beloved 3rd Great Grandmother, Mary Minerva Park.

It should be no surprise then, that on Friday night, 3 May 2002, in a gesture of reflective love, I placed my favorite family photograph (4-generation) of Mary Minerva Park-Cobb, with daughter, Betty (McKinney), Granddaughter, Mary (Yates) and a Great Grandchild, in our living room in full view (Graciously given to me by Cousin Roger Deane of Atlanta, GA). The three women in the clear, detailed picture were all dressed in beautiful, long, black dresses of the late 19th Century. You see, I wanted to be able to cherish this picture and remember her birthday the next day. Upon waking the following morning, I looked with admiration at the picture of Mary Minerva and wished her “Happy Birthday” in a hushed tone, as if only for her to hear. It was at that moment that I suddenly recalled something I had sensed in my sleep the night before--having heard soft, approaching footsteps and the sound of fabric dragging the floor….a long dress perhaps; and then being caressed by an arm, gently and protectively wrapped around me as I lay in my bed. My wife, Pam, was out of town at the time, attending the funeral of long-time neighbor, Mr. George Crone, in Ft. Ashby, WV (Mineral County) with our two youngest children and I was a bit down over the prospect of being separated from my bride of nearly 20 years on my birthday. But, I now know that it was Mary who visited during the wee hours of 4 May 2002; her 180th Birthday and my 43rd, comforting me as I slept, in a gesture of love and gratitude with the realization that I will never forget the day of her birth, which made the same possible for me.

I feel I know Mary Minerva. And in my heart, I believe that in the waning moments of my life on earth, it will be the soft wisp of a dress that I will again hear, even as my eyesight fails me….

But this time, it will be the touch of her loving arms, that will carry me Home.


“Infinite Ancestral Miracles: My Birth and a Prayer for Thy Descendants”

“I now realize that my birth is the culmination of endless miracles; each unique and infinitive in their own right, beginning with God's will and hence of ancestors born in dark ages--generations later, traveling hazardous seas to an array of lifetimes of chance meetings, marriages, conceptions, births, and even near-death experiences that could have ended my beginning in the moment of a single breath so long ago. The thought of all of this is overwhelming to us in the human race, though merely logical and natural to our creator. Our birthdays bring to light, the reality of pre-destiny….a true manifestation of God; for not one human lives without his grace. The Miracle of Life then, is by its very nature, first and foremost, a derivative of thousands upon thousands of other ancestral miracles and the blessings that breathed life into me. Thank you lord for you, so that they could be, and I could live as me--while countless children of future generations might remember, in appreciation and understanding, their sacred roots. This I pray, that in their hearts I shall always be and never perish.”

With Love and Respect,

Your 3rd Great Grandson,

Doug Park
(4 May 1959- )

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