Per memories of Aunt Kathleen Sleadd (Ron's aunt):
Her grandfather Henry and grandmother Belle Gray lived on a large farm (the old Houser place) on Greenwood Rd in Jefferson Co, KY, which extended to the banks of the Ohio River. In the 1937 flood, their home was washed from its foundation and down the river. They rebuilt on the same foundation, living in a tent until they could get the work done. Aunt Kathy remembers that somebody donated a sewing machine to them. She thinks it must have been so they could replace their lost clothing. She and her sister Roma (Ron's mom) visited afterwards and she remembers the farmhouse across the road had an old radio sitting on the top of the roof, and there was debris scattered everywhere. Her Aunt Lillie and Uncle Earl both lived on the farm to help out until their parents died. Both of them later married.
The US census data shows that in 1900 and 1910, Henry and Belle rented farms in the Valley Station area on River Rd. Henry had a 2nd grade education, while Belle attended through eighth grade. On the 1920 census they are listed as farm owners on Greenwood Rd, with Henry listed as a truck farmer.
Henry's death certificate states that he died of pancreatic cancer.
Louisville Memorial Gardens is located at 4400 Dixie Hwy, Louisville, KY. GPS Coordinates: 38.18336, -85.81778
Louisville Memorial Gardens was originally founded as Louisville Memorial Park. The name was legally changed in the 1950's to Louisville Memorial Gardens. The company that owns this cemetery also owns Louisville Memorial Gardens East and after it opened, began calling this cemetery Louisville Memorial Gardens West, although the legal name remains Louisville Memorial Gardens. Originally, the Memorial Gardens Association hired landscape architect Max G Fuller and chief engineer Clyde A Sievers to design and engineer the cemetery.
There are over 34,000 people currently buried in this cemetery. It opened in 1920. The vast majority of the graves in this cemetery are marked with flat bronze markers at ground level. In recent years, memorial benches were also approved as memorial markers.
Louisville Memorial Gardens is the final resting place for many of the families who lived in and around or trace their heritage to Shively, Kentucky. Many of the families buried here originated in Louisville's West End and moved into the area in the 1950s and 1960s or they moved from Louisville's collar counties finding employment in Louisville's manufacturing, distillery, tobacco, or skilled trades professions. There is a large number of descendants of German immigrants that settled in Shively, Kentucky buried in this cemetery and parishioners of the following local Catholic churches: St. Helen, St. Denis, St. Lawrence, Mary Queen of Peace, St. Mathias, and St. Simon and Jude, among others.