Breaking News: New Find-A-Grave photo for Mary Callin in Muscatine

Thanks to Find-A-Grave member Kelly Muldoon for fulfilling this photo request in the Oak Grove Cemetery, Muscatine, Iowa.

In case you don't recall the post The Distance of Close Connections, here's a quick quote:

Alec Callin, who felt The Pull of the West and moved further, from Ohio to Iowa. Just to refresh you on the details, the CFH says this of Alec:
"Married and moved with his family and mother to Iowa about the year of 1840. The mother referred to was 'Aunt Mary', wife of James 2nd who was killed with a gun. She sold the farm and went with Alec to Iowa where she died some years later. Nothing has been heard from that branch of the family since 1845."
There are several records of land grants to an Alexander Callin, one identifying him as a resident of Muscatine, Iowa in July 1854, and showing that he purchased a plots of land in the young state. There is also a Mary Callin buried in a Muscatine county cemetery, having died in 1846 at age 77.

The existing Find-A-Grave memorial for Mary Callin had that information - and if the photo had only been "head on," it would have merely confirmed what we already knew. I've scoured the records in the area trying to find connections to the Callin family in that area. But because Kelly also posted this photo, I got a bonus clue:

Mary Callin's memorial in Muscatine
(click to go to Find-A-Grave)

 I won't keep you in suspense - the memorial carved on the other side of that stone belongs to one Callin Rayburn. I had seen that name pop up in some of my searches, and it was interesting, but other researchers on Find-A-Grave connect his mother, Eleanor Callen Rayburn, back to the Patrick Callen family from Armstrong county, Pennsylvania.

This isn't concrete proof (pun intended), but it is a clue literally set in stone - at the very least, our Callin family was close enough to the descendants of Patrick Callen to be buried side by side in an Iowa cemetery.

I have a lot of work to do to see if I can find more information, but this is tantalizing and exciting!

(And, as always, if you're related to these Rayburn and/or Callen folks, please let me know! I'd love to compare notes!)