To begin with, I found George – actually George Washington Eubank -- resting just a mile away in the tiny El Bethel church cemetery, with his wife Ella C. His dates were 1857-1930, so he was 4 year old boy when the Civil War broke out, 8 when it ended, 41 at the start of the Spanish-American war, 60 when the US entered WW1, 73 at his death at the start of the depression.

A death certificate showed that he had died of heart disease. It also identified his parents:  James Eubank and Lucy Shepherd.  James, I found, had a younger brother named John, and these two brothers’ lives and deaths held a remarkable bond. 

James and John were born in 1820 and 1822. They first appear in Amherst County records in 1845 when they together bought a small piece of land, part of what would become the George Place. They first appear in the US census in 1850, living and farming together, neither yet married. The 1850 agricultural census lists their farm as 200 acres, with 80 head of stock (probably mostly sheep at that time).