Theodore, his first wife, Keziah (Hudson) Parmelee, and several of their children are buried to the left of the center of the small East Street Cemetery at Goshen, Conn. Many of the markers belong to the Baldwin, Beech and Parmelee families.

When I first started my study of the Parmelee family, Keziah's was one of the first headstones I found, but there was no marker for Theodore, who served in a light horse unit during the Revolutionary War.

In the 1980s and '90s, the cemetery was kept mowed, but little else was done. For years there was a stack of old headstones, too heavy to sort through, piled next to a barn at one end of the cemetery. When I visited in 2002, those markers -- including Theodore's -- had been reinstalled, and some DAR replacement markers -- including one for Theodore -- had been erected in a row in the center of the cemetery.

Several other Revolutionary War soldiers are also buried in this cemetery that's been well looked after.