A letter dated 1 February 1979 from Lena Moffitt to Erma Miller:

My Dear Erma— your letter today [asking about the Monette Cemetery]

            Monette never had a cemetery. But Dorothea Calbert of Lorimor wrote me about a few burials on the Turney farm. It must have been when the Chicago Great Western RR Co. put their line thru. That I presume [was] late 80’s – I was born in ’91 and [the] RR was there. I grew up in Section 34 and we owned a strip [of land on] the west side of [the] track in Section 33, south of the Turney place.

            Mr. Starned lived where David Erickson has built a new home and when they (RR) came thru he gave 10 acres for a division town – but [the division] went to the Missouri border. [Research note: On 27 April 2017 research found a property conveyance record at the Union County Recorder’s Office where Maria Starnes was a Grantee on 21 Aug 1884]. Leon Husenberry owns the forty that [the] RR went thru and [the ] Turneys owned it [before then]. Who was before the Turneys I would not know. They are buried in the Lorimor Cemetery right near our land.

            If any burials are there I would say it was the people who lived there before the Turneys – as they used to bury their dead on their farm. That is what I think, probably a child or maybe more. Look at records before the Turneys owned it. The X is where the house stood in corner cattycorner from the Monette school house and church. There used to be apple trees in that corner. I ate a lot of them when I attended Monette School.

            As to Mr. Turney’s name, I don’t know but the boys were Grant and Harry and the girls were Belle and Ollie, she was a hunch back (fell from a swing) and she was organist for the Monette Church held in the school house up to 1904 when the Monette Church was dedicated 18 December 1904. [Church] carpenters were Bert Clark and Esther Stalcup’s father, both from Afton, and Mrs. Orvice Thurman’s grandfather.

            I think mother took me as a babe to the first celebration Lorimor had, I presume in ’92. I think it was ’92 as I was born 25 February 1891. She probably wouldn’t have taken me that first year but I don’t know.

            I just cannot think only it was a private burial for one or two. Couldn’t tell. I never knew of this until Dorothea wrote me last summer. Mr. & Mrs. Turney, Ollie and Grant and wife (I suppose) are buried right east of Stroup (?) and our lot is the next one west. Now Mr. Turney I never remember[ed] him. I’m just supposing he's buried in Lorimor but I know  his Mrs. is. I well remember him. In fact Harry came to school in [the] winter mo’s. I was a little girl – he became a mail clerk for Great Western and would wave at his folks when he on the train going thru around 9 am or there abouts. No. 1 train. [She goes on with small talk having nothing to do with history.]

            This map [is] not too true as it shows our house south of [the] corner turning west. But in that narrow strip between [the] RR and [the] road is where the buildings used to be and I would say if any burials, as to who lived there before my time. But I think the RR got the right of way and Turneys built the buildings where the Dusenberry ___________30/acres right away as wide down to the corner. To turn to our old farm used to be 40 a. Then across the road Turneys used to own a 40 on Sec. 28.