"...so Carrie won't have to be alone..." were some of Carol Ann McNeely, nee Hackenberg's last words in the early September 2010 days when she was "getting her affairs in order" at Valley Medical Center, Renton, Washington. Having dispensed with immediate family business, she turned the conversation to where she wanted to rest. Her husband, Mike, having pretty much supposed her choice would be either with her mom and dad or at the farm, was a bit surprised with what she said.
During Carol's research into her family's history she had been much impressed with Carrie. Carrie Tobiath Hackenberg, Josef Hackenberg's third wife, was a strong, intelligent activist woman who championed and participated in the enactment of much of the social legislation and reform we take for granted today. She had participated in a communal living experiment; she was acquainted with Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas; she wrote provocative letters to the editor of the Rainier Review. No doubt she was outspoken and assertive. One can understand that this was womanly behavior unfamiliar to a lot of folks in those days and many, including Carol's own mother, Wilma, didn't like Carrie very much. She was criticized and, probably, to some extent ostracized - left alone - from warm family relationships and interaction. Carol felt strongly that Carrie had been slighted and poorly judged in her own time; she wanted to do something about it. And so she directed Mike to put her urn at Carries grave.
Mike's promise to Carol to "get it done" was an easy one to keep. He chose the inscription in her stone, placed next to Carrie's at the Green Mountain Cemetery in Rainier, because these were her words; because they subtly reveal the warm caring person she was; and because they contain a hint of mystery that someday might inspire somebody to investigate - and that would please Carol very much.
Yeah! Very well said. She always was a champion to the underdog!
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