The World Wide Cemetery

Tracy Christina Allen ✵ 1970-1998


Name at birth:	Tracy Christina Renfro
Date of birth:	10 May 1970
Place of birth:	Paris, Texas USA
Date of death:	09 January 1998
Place of death:	Paris, Texas USA
Resting place:	Providence Cemetery Paris, Texas USA
Submitted by:	Norma Renfro (nrenfro@cox-internet.com)

Tracy Christina was the youngest child of Robert and Norma (Jackson)Renfro. She leaves behind a brother Eddie Renfro and a sister Rebecca (Renfro) Boatwright. Also, two half sisters, Roxanne Renfro and Robbie Kay (Renfro) Salmon, all of Texas. Tracy also leaves two precious young sons, Mathew Joseph Allen and Justin Lee Allen. They were only 9 and 12 years old when God called her home. Tracy also leaves one heartbroken Mother, Norma Renfro, who feels as if her life ended the day her daughter died at only 27 years of age. I feel as if Tracy was never meant to live to be old. She was a warm-hearted, sincere, loving person. Her personality was outgoing, outstanding and unforgetable. Her laugh and sense of humor alone made it worthwhile, just to know her. She was a hard worker, making the living for her family. In spite of her physical problems from a motorcycle accident when she was only 14, in which she broke both legs, one arm, and pelvis, and had steel pins in both legs, she held down a fulltime job that she had to stand on her feet all day, with a bone growing through the bottom of one of her feet. She was clerk and manager of a convenience store and was robbed at gunpoint twice, and both times, was back at work the very next day. She had a hard life, for it to be such a short one. Everything she owned was burned in a fire as it was being moved. All was lost, even the truck and trailer. Tracy worked at one job for four years, without missing one day of work. She suffered a miscarriage with her third baby. She had every reason to see life as nothing but heartache. She had very little in the way of material things, never having a nice home and pretty things to decorate with. She had such few clothes, that they were carried out on one arm, from the closet. All this wasn’t enough….then to fight the long hard battle with cancer. She went through the radiation, the chemotherapy, the surgeries, the tests, the exams, hundreds of medications,and yet never gave in to it. She believed in God and also in miracles. She believed to the last day of her life, that God would send a miracle. I believe that He did, in His own way. I believe that he rescued her from the life that she had. He didn’t answer our prayers as we asked him to, but He took Tracy home with him where she would be well, and safe and never have to worry again. She is walking without steel pins now, and singing in that beautiful voice with other angels. If she managed to always be uplifting and cheerful and hopeful and loving here, in the midst of all she had to endure, I can only imagine how happy she is now that she is in God’s great kingdom. I don’t wish her away from the Heavenly Home she is living in now, and yet I wonder how we can go on without her presence here. On some of my better days, when I’m not crying, I wonder if maybe she wasn’t my daughter at all… Maybe she was really an angel, just pretending to be Mother, Daughter, Sister and Friend… Maybe God sent her here for a short period of time to teach the ones of us that knew and loved her so many lessons, for we did learn from her. We learned about Love, Strength, Caring, Sharing, and so much more. I miss my little girl, she will always be that in my mind. She was my child, my friend, and life will never be the same again. But then, Heaven won’t either, now that she’s there. Goodnight my precious child…..Mama

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Thelma Elaine Allen ✵ 1919-1985


Name at birth:	Thelma Elaine Westgate
Date of birth:	21/11/1919
Place of birth:	Taunton, MA.
Date of death:	18/5/1985
Place of death:	Middleboro,MA.
Resting place:	Staples Street Cemetery, East Taunton, MA USA
Submitted by:	LaVerne Reynolds (AuntyBern@aol.com)

THELMA E. ALLEN

TAUNTON- Thelma E (Westgate) Allen, 65, of 51 Kingman St., East Taunton, died Saturday after a brief illness. She was the wife of Vernon F. Allen and daughter of the late Leon and Gertrude (Burnham) Westgate.
She died at St. Luke’s Hospital, Middleboro, Ma. She was born in Taunton and lived here most of her life. She attended East Taunton Congregational Church.
Survivors include her widower: four sons Richard Borden, LeRoy Borden, Kevin Allen and Glenn Allen all of Taunton; five daughters, Elaine Hovestadt, Marion Reynolds, LaVerne Reynolds, Judith DeCosta and Sheri Haskins, all of Taunton; two brothers, Sheldon Westgate of South Middleboro and Elwyn Westgate of East Taunton; a sister Pauline Lewis of East Taunton; 17 grandchildren; and five great grandchildren.
Arrangements are made by Ashley Funeral Home, 35 Oak St., Middleboro.

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Robert Jason Allen ✵ 1971-1996

Name at birth:    Robert Jason Allen 
Date of birth:    14/09/71 
Place of birth:   Cleburne, Texas, USA
Date of death:    17/07/96 
Place of death:   Camp Springs, Maryland, USA 
Place of burial:  Caddo Cemetery, Joshua, Texas
Submitted by: Susan Curlee (TexEyes1@onramp.net)

Jason was a very popular and well-liked person all of his life. He excelled at everything he attempted and was very active in Scouts, FFA, rodeo, and football. He made All-County and All-District in football his senior year and graduated in 1990. Jason loved hunting and fishing above almost everything else in his life.

Not knowing exactly what he wanted to do with his life, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in February, 1991. After basic training and several radar schools, he received his permanent orders to Andrews Air Force Base in Camp Springs, Maryland, where he was attached to a Naval Squadron VP-68. While there Jason earned several medals and received a Letter of Commendation. He continued entering rodeos while in the service, riding saddle broncs and bulls.

Jason never liked being stationed so far from home and only re-enlisted after his first four years because he had a chance to receive orders back in Texas. We know Jason was still troubled about the path his life was taking. He couldn’t decide whether to leave the Navy, go to college, and become a teacher, or stay in the service and make it his career. When he was last home on leave it seemed to bother him that all of his friends had married and started their families.

He was a somewhat private person, who kept his feelings closely guarded to some extent and we’ll never know what was truly on his mind when, on July 17, 1996, Jason chose to end his life…he had recently made 2nd Class Petty Officer and received orders to Kingsville, Texas… the thing he’d wanted for the last six years. He is desperately missed by his parents, his step-parents, his grandparents, his brother, his half-sister, and literally hundreds of friends.

Go with God, Jason, and be at peace … finally. I love you and miss you so ….

Mom

A TRIBUTE TO JASON – by his aunt, Pollye McCoy

He’s laid aside his helmet
His football’s put away
The doves are cooing softly
His gun won’t fire today.

The fish are swimming elsewhere
In another sparkling stream
And the campfire’s light is darkened
‘Neath the starlight’s silver gleam.

The bulls and broncs he loved to ride
Are silent now and still
His boots and hats are empty
They’re impossible to fill.

His cowboy days are over
But his entry fees are paid
We hear his voice and see his smile
Those things will never fade.

We will forever ever love him
In our hearts he’ll always be
This cowboy, friend, brother, and son
We miss so desperately …

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Olive Sandford Alcox ✵ 1986-1974

Name at birth:    Olive Sandford 
Date of birth:    22 August 1896 
Place of birth:   Parkersburg Iowa USA 
Date of death:    29 August 1974 
Place of death:   Cape May Co, New Jersey USA 
Place of burial:  Godfrey Crematory Palermo NJ USA

Submitted by: Susan Watts (boswat@lexcominc.net)

Olive remained above reproach throughout her life. She was a beautiful lady who loved all of Jehovah’s creation. She appreciated the mountains and the ocean and all kinds of animals. She raised such lovely flowers at her home that people drove from afar to admire them. She always said “There is no such word as can’t. You can do anything if you work hard enough.” She did. She ran the RS Alcox Hardware Store in Brookfield Connecticut while raising her 2 children. She was known and admired by the townspeople for her hard work and help for all who came in contact with her. Those who lived there continue to speak of her intelligence and kindness.

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Michael Kibbee ✵ 1964-1997

1994

Interview in Chicago, 1996


Name at birth:	Michael Stanley Kibbee
Date of birth:	February 5, 1964
Place of birth:	Brockville, Ontario, Canada
Date of death:	March 8, 1997
Place of death:	Toronto, Canada
Resting place:	Toronto Necropolis, Canada
Submitted by:	Gerald Hannon

Lives Lived – The Globe and Mail, March 20, 1997 – by Gerald Hannon

Michael Stanley Kibbee, M.Sc., P.Eng.

Born in Brockville, Ontario, February 5, 1964.
Grew up in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario.
Died in Toronto March 8, 1997, of Hodgkins Disease.

I measure the beginning of the days of his dying by the sweet smell of pine boards, freshly cut, stacked neatly in the hallway of his apartment. He was an engineer, and when he learned he was dying of cancer he coped by making his death a project: he would design and build his own coffin. He was an engineer, but he was also a gay man. He said he could not bear the thought of leaving this world in some tacky commercial box, all plush and brass and gee-gaws. He insisted on simple pine, and he designed the pattern and angling of the boards, specified a lining of unbleached, raw cotton, bridled at the suggestion he be buried in a suit, asked only to be shrouded in that same raw fabric.

He had the startling individuality of a man who had never owned a television. He had the not always endearing social awkwardness of a man who had never read fiction. That lapse frequently led him to believe that people would behave reasonably, if only they knew the facts, and I would say, “oh Mike, read some stories, it’s fiction gets you truth” and he would just wince and we would segue into half a night sometimes of argument and laughter and he would try to explain to me, with his meticulous little ink drawings, how a two-stroke engine worked and I would play him some music I loved and more often than not we would end up in a paroxysm of perfect geekiness about computers and the Internet, a passion we shared. His geekiness could be stellar: he yelped with glee when the Globe and Mail published his Morning Smile submission (“What do seagulls use to write their letters? Birdperfect”).

But it was geekiness with sex appeal too: he was a handsome man, and he knew it, and he favoured plaid shirts, and jeans, and a black bomber jacket, no matter how cold the weather. He lived his final days in a tiny rented house, just nine feet wide, not much bigger than a garage, and half of what might have been called the living room was consumed by a motorcycle he thought too beautiful to ride. He owned a second, though, and took friends on nerve-shattering, late-night freeway runs, never quite noticing, I think, how their exhilaration was tinged with more than a little terror. He also owned a small boat, a Zodiac inflatable. He would indulge my passion for fireworks by taking me out on the water to watch the Symphony of Fire, and the first time we did that we never noticed that we’d come unmoored, and had drifted past the police safety line, and into the danger zone, where the sky writhed with fire just above our heads. He tried never to own more than two plates, two bowls, two forks, two knives, two spoons and two drinking glasses: but the glasses had to be crystal, and had to come from Ashley’s.

His work as an engineer was a closed world to me, but his eccentrically creative solutions (sometimes to problems that were thought not to have any) dazzled his colleagues. When his Hodgkins returned, after a three-year remission, he was working on the Hibernia project in Newfoundland. He was the youngest engineer ever hired to do so.

He returned to Toronto then, for a bone-marrow transplant and one last painful round of chemo and radiation. It didn’t work, but it bought him some time. He began to design his coffin. And he began the development, with his friend Steve Brauer, of what would become the World Wide Cemetery. It was a stroke of genius. It meant that a son, now living in Australia, say, could “visit” his father’s grave just by turning on a computer, even though the body may have been physically interred in Canada. Visitors could leave “flowers”: typically a short poem, or message of condolence. The site could have photographs, sound clips, even short video clips. The wonderful interconnectivity of the Web made it easy to link deaths (and the marvelous details of lives) of family members who may have died years apart and in different countries.

The project attracted international media attention. The Discovery Channel* in the U.S. filmed him for a segment on Death in America, and newspapers in Europe and the United States did features on this skinny, wasting young man, working so feverishly to complete a project he saw as his memorial and legacy.

When he began it, he did not think he had much time, and he hoped that it would be complete enough when he died that it could be inaugurated with his “burial.” But one of those unpredictable cancer remissions happened, and when it was clear that he was going to live for a while longer, I brought up, gently, that maybe he wouldn’t be the first one in the cemetery after all.

“Oh I know,” he said, with that antic smile that carried us through one more summer of remission; one more summer of headlong motorcycling that would wrap the midnight city round us like a flag; one more summer of drifting too far out into a lake that mirrored a sky weeping with fire. “Oh, I know,” he said, “I know. Isn’t that a bummer!”

*Although this is the text as it originally appeared in The Globe and Mail, we were in error in saying that the documentary was made for the Discovery Channel. It is in fact a project of World Productions producer/director, J.R. Olivero.

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