Tombstone Tuesday - From the Bean Family Cemetery

Today we will continue with the Bean Family Cemetery, located across the road and upon a knoll from the old Bean Homestead, near Waiteville, in Monroe County, West Virginia.

Today's stone is, as the others were, plain, unmarked and broken. It sits at the head of a sunken grave. Most of the graves in this cemetery are clearly dinlineated by the sunken shapes. These are roughly 6-8 feet long by 4-foot wide. And for the most part, the graves are sunken 8-10 inches.

This stone is lichen covered, and is very brittle. Easily chipping when one attempts to peel the lichen away when looking for markings.

Because, as previously noted, we do not know who is buried where in this cemetery, the stones we are focusing upon are merely symbolic on the names we are assigning them.

Today's stone we will assign to a woman we know very, very little about.

Amanda Shires Bean.

Amanda SHIRES was born about 1826 to John and Margaret HAND SHIRES. She was one of at least two known children born to this couple.

On 01 Jan 1849, Amanda married Archibald Marmaduke BEANE [1826-1899], the son of wealthy landowner William BEAN and his wife Rachel WISEMAN BEAN.

Amanda and Archibald had three known children:

John William BEANE [1849 - 1899]

Amanda Alafaire BEANE  [1850 - 1907]

and

Alafore BEANE [b. 1852]

It is believed that Amanda may have died in childbirth with the last child. It is also possible that Amanada Alafaire and Alafore are one and the same individual. Death and Birth records did not appear in this county during the years when either of these events would have occurred.

It is long held family tradition that Archibald buried Amanda on the Bean property at the family cemetery.

Archibald went on to marry, in Dec 1853, Margaret Ann DUNBAR, whose grandparents were influential in the founding of the county. They then had nine children together.

No other information is known about Amanda Shires Bean at this time.