Sarah Drusilla (Brock) Duckett (1866-1933) (“Sallie”) is not buried at Duckett Cemetery, where her husband Allen Turner Duckett (1846-1907) and his first wife Sarah Elizabeth (Bell) Duckett (1852-1893) are buried. In fact, Sallie is the only Duckett known to be buried thirteen miles away at Witherspoon Cemetery, near Vandervoort, in Polk County. (Here’s another later Witherspoon Cemetery inventory.) Why way over there? I don’t know, but I speculate that it was to be near her family.
Sallie’s parents, Mary Jane (Towry) (sometimes referred to as “Jane”) (1841-1916) and Thomas Brock (1823-1908), and her sister Mary J. (Brock) Marlow (1875-1929) and Mary’s husband Alvah Marlow (1868-1915) were already buried at Witherspoon when Sallie died. (Ronnie Duckett toured the cemetery this April and confirmed that Sarah’s stone is near the Brocks.)
Mary (Brock) Marlow’s only known child John Alvah Marlow was living with Sarah in Duckett Township in 1930. Sarah’s stepsons Elza Ray and Selma Duckett are also on this page of the census.
Since John Marlow had already buried his parents at Witherspoon, it may have seemed convenient to bury his Aunt Sarah near his parents when she died three years later. (John Marlow moved to Idaho about 1936, so he didn’t actually tend their graves that long.)
Sarah’s paternal grandparents, Sarah (Anderson) (1798-1884) and John Henry Brock (1802-1880) were also buried at Witherspoon. And that’s not all.
Many of her aunts and uncles were also already buried there, including Mary (Brock) Holden (1825-1884), Drusilla (Brock) Merchant (1830-1912), Lucinda Brock (1835-1909), Lawrence Brock (1840-1918), and Permelia Caroline Brock (1842-1909).
Sarah’s brother Thomas Silas Brock (1881-1958) and sister Nancy Della (Brock) Webster (1879-1945) would also be buried there eventually, as would her maternal uncles, James Matthew Towery (1864-1933) and Jefferson Davis Towry (1861-1945).
Also, by 1933, transportation was somewhat easier. It seems to me that you could likely choose a cemetery a little further away without too much inconvenience.
In a side note, Sarah actually married a Brock descendant when she married Turner Duckett. Thomas S. and Jane (Higgins) Brock were Turner’s grandparents and Sarah’s great-grandparents, making Turner and Sarah first cousins once removed. Turner’s mother was Melenda (Brock) Duckett (1822-1861), and Sarah’s grandfather was Melenda’s oldest brother John Henry Brock (1802-1880). So, being buried among the Brocks meant she was also among her husband’s maternal relatives – and buried near her husband’s grandparents. (I don’t know where his mother Melenda was buried. An on-line transcription of her family Bible provides a death date, but not a location.)
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