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Across the Fence:  Anyone else enjoy a good trip to the...  |
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Tracey
True Blue Farmgirl
766 Posts
Tracey
State of Confusion
USA
766 Posts |
 Posted - Feb 01 2007 : 4:53:58 PM
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...cemetary??? I love cemetaries, always have. DD appears to have inherited my fondness for them. I've been known to make City Boy pull over so I could go check them out while we're driving down back country roads.
How about you?
Visit Quiet Storm, our adopted Mustang! http://wildaboutquietstorm.com
http://carpentercreek.blogspot.com
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Marybeth
True Blue Farmgirl
6418 Posts
Mary Beth
Stanwood
Wa 98292
USA
6418 Posts |
Posted - Feb 01 2007 : 5:17:37 PM
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I love cemetaries too. There are a lot of real old timey ones over this way. In fact there is one near here in some ones pasture that probably was/is a family one. It has 6 headstones and the tallest one has a mans name Joseph.......died 1871. I think that is so cool.
I thought you were going to say 'anyone else enjoy a good trip to the.....john! Only with a good book. MB
www.strawberryhillsfarm.blogspot.com
www.day4plus.blogspot.com
"Life may not be the party we hoped for...but while we are here we might as well dance!" |
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Luzy
True Blue Farmgirl
922 Posts
Luanne
Pueblo
Colorado
USA
922 Posts |
Posted - Feb 01 2007 : 5:26:29 PM
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Me too! I just love the old headstones and reading about the people that rest there. In fact, I plan on visiting a local one and taking some black and white/sepia photos. When I was in High School one of my art classes was sent on a field trip to take rubbings and they turned out really cool. Wish I still had them but there's been too many moves over the years and have no idea what happened to them. Guess I can make new ones huh? Lu
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May I always be the kind of person my dog thinks I am. |
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bramble
True Blue Farmgirl
2044 Posts
2044 Posts |
Posted - Feb 01 2007 : 5:45:08 PM
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Hey Luanne! We did that too in HS and I remember alot of kids were just freaked out! It just seemed to be like a large park with alot of statuary at first and then reading some was just downright sad.
Some of the carvings and statues are amazing and a few years ago there was a big FBI case about stolen cemetary "regalia". Parts of the old masoleums in New Orleans were "walking" away and being resold by antique dealers. Our area had some but I think it has slowed down due to the severe prosecution.
with a happy heart |
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Tracey
True Blue Farmgirl
766 Posts
Tracey
State of Confusion
USA
766 Posts |
Posted - Feb 01 2007 : 8:24:29 PM
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Well, Marybeth, there are days a good trip to the john are in order, lol!
I was down in Sedro today...well, went to Rockport, actually, and if it hadn't been so late I'd have headed to Stanwood or Conway for some pictures. I was laughing, telling Darling that we ought to start a blog on cemetaries. There're probably already several, but it might be kinda fun! We took lots of pics at Bayview today.
Lu, I think that would be rather fun, doing the rubbings.
Visit Quiet Storm, our adopted Mustang! http://wildaboutquietstorm.com
http://carpentercreek.blogspot.com
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Marybeth
True Blue Farmgirl
6418 Posts
Mary Beth
Stanwood
Wa 98292
USA
6418 Posts |
Posted - Feb 01 2007 : 8:50:12 PM
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Tracey, If you get down this way go to the Fir Conway cemetary on Milltown road. Old and new sites. Pleasant ridge and a real old one on brandsom (?) rd up my way. I posted the tiny one with six headstons on my day4plus blog. It is in Conway on Skagit City Rd. Go west over the bridge and take the first right. The Bay View cemetary is cool. Or were you at the Bayview one on Whidbey? I am watching 100 memorable metal moments so I was going to say have a ghoulish good time but that doesn't really apply. Have fun. MB
www.strawberryhillsfarm.blogspot.com
www.day4plus.blogspot.com
"Life may not be the party we hoped for...but while we are here we might as well dance!" |
Edited by - Marybeth on Feb 01 2007 8:53:54 PM |
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ArmyWifey
True Blue Farmgirl
712 Posts
Holly
Abilene
KS
712 Posts |
Posted - Feb 01 2007 : 10:04:49 PM
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a funny incident.........mil realy wanted to show us her family plot but we couldn't find it. Turns out we were in the WRONG cememtary.....needed to go a few miles down the road!
I like to read the headstones and wonder about peoples lives. National cemetaries are sobering but peaceful as well.
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!
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jo Thompson
True Blue Farmgirl
603 Posts
Jo
the mountainside of the Chugach
in Alaska
USA
603 Posts |
Posted - Feb 01 2007 : 10:52:41 PM
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So do we have a favorite list of cemetaries.....
#1 the old Oregon Trail Cementary in The Dalles Oregon........ amazing, lots of young children, women, lots of OLD men, what does that say?
#2 Paris, unbelievable, sort of a little city for the deceased....
#3 Boston, do they not have the most amazing headstones???
My sister and I took an "american history road tour" a few years back, did a gettysburg ghost walk, very cool!
Is it just me, or are we a rather odd lot here! jo
"life is drab without a lab"
http://homepage.mac.com/thomja/Anchorage/PhotoAlbum15.html |
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ThymeForEweFarm
True Blue Farmgirl
705 Posts
Robin
An organic farm in the forest in
Maine
USA
705 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 03:49:39 AM
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I grew up a couple of miles from the second largest garden cemetery in the country. It's a beautiful place. The community has remained very respectful while using the grounds for exercise. Movies are occasionally filmed there. There are sections for paupers, the Old Women's home, war memorials, criminals and more. The history told in the stones is amazing.
Robin
www.robinfollette.com
www.thymeforewe.com
www.mainenature.org
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Forrester Farm
True Blue Farmgirl
703 Posts
Ann
Belmont
MI
USA
703 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 04:24:55 AM
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That was so funny...I was expecting you to say a vacation spot. I enjoy them too. I grew up going to a Catholic School that had the quaintest cemetery across the street. We weren't allowed to go there - we just had to go to all of the funerals and sing - if that isn't crazy!!! We didn't understand the whole thing, and if someone started to giggle, we all did. And then got dirty looks from the nuns. Back to cemeteries though...our softball field was next to the cemetery - just down the hill. I would spend time exploring the cemetery rather than playing ball. It was so peaceful. The most beautiful, quaint cemetery that I've ever seen - with so much history. Thanks for bringing back the memory. Now I want to take my children there once the snow melts.
Ann
http://annforrester.tohe.com |
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jpbluesky
True Blue Farmgirl
6066 Posts
Jeannie
Florida
USA
6066 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 04:35:07 AM
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I have taken photographs of cemetaries all over our north Florida region and a few in Illinois, too. Just a few blocks from my house there is a small cemetary right in the middle of a subdivision. It is an old slave cemetary from the mid-1800's.
The neatest gravestone I ever saw was that of a pioneer woamn from this area whose last name was Chaires. The grave was from the late 1800's. Her grave looked like a bed, with a headboard (on which her name was engraved) and a footboard. Draped across the footboard was what looked like a robe or a gown. The "bed" part between the two stones was a flower garden. A flower bed! It stands alone behind a planatation house that was last the homestead of Edward Ball, but was once the home of the Chaires family.
Then there was the one in Illinois that was literally standing in the corner of a cornfield. I stopped and took photos of that one too. It was a hugh stone carved tree stump with little branches sticking out from it. All over it was the names of the folks buried beneath it. One gravestone for the whole family, and each time someone was buried they added a name to the family tree. The stump was probably about 6 feet high and big around just like a big ole tree. And it was very carved to show the bark and everything. Quite amazing..
Cemetaries are such storytellers!
Ephesians 1:17 |
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junebug
True Blue Farmgirl
2421 Posts
Sue
West Plains,
Mo.
USA
2421 Posts |
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Amie C.
True Blue Farmgirl
2099 Posts
Finger Lakes Region
NY
2099 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 05:54:02 AM
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I love the cemeteries and battlefields at Gettsyburg. Went there several years in a row with a school group. I especially love walking through the battlefield (up the road that leads to the Devil's Den) after dark. Watch out for the park police though! They've probably had to get even meaner since 9/11.
I also love to walk in the cemeteries near my home. This is sad, but my urban neighborhood has become pretty dangerous in the past year. I had to give up walking around the streets and parks. Now I've started driving a couple of miles up the road and walking in a large cemetery. It's the only place I feel safe going alone these days. And most of my father's family are buried there, so I feel like I've got some company. |
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Marybeth
True Blue Farmgirl
6418 Posts
Mary Beth
Stanwood
Wa 98292
USA
6418 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 06:43:33 AM
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I really like the small old timey cemetaries. The large ones with real recent burials to me are the sad ones. The grave markers on the real old ones are so interesting. The one in Stanwood is surrounded by new houses and there is a huge stone memorial to the Norweigian pioneers. MB
www.strawberryhillsfarm.blogspot.com
www.day4plus.blogspot.com
"Life may not be the party we hoped for...but while we are here we might as well dance!" |
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Mumof3
True Blue Farmgirl
3890 Posts
Karin
Ellenwood
GA
USA
3890 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 06:53:59 AM
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We have Oakland Cemetary here with some famous (and some infamous) inhabitants. It is a beautiful cemetary to visit. When I was a little girl, there was a cemetary down the street from us that drew me to it. All of the beautiful headstones, the names and dates of those who had passed and especially the sentiments that were lovingly picked by the families to let everyone know about their loved one would occupy me for hours. I think they are some of the most wonderful places to visit!!
Karin |
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Horseyrider
True Blue Farmgirl
1045 Posts
Mary Ann
Illinois
1045 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 06:56:27 AM
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Me, too. There's one like a tree that jpbluesky described in a cemetery not far from the barn where I board in winter. It's about ten feet high, and just as she described. It must've been the the style at one time. I taught my grandsons how to read dates at a local cemetery. Most of the cemeteries in our area go back about a hundred and fifty years, and in our rural area are full of old oaks and prairie pines. We're almost always the only people there. We bring a little snack, and sometimes make up stories about the people buried there.
The kids are full of questions about recent graves with little toys. There's one child there who died in a freak accident when, while playing in the water one scorching summer afternoon, he touched the siding on his garage and was electrocuted. If I remember right, he was just in the fifth grade. His poor family; what a wrenching loss.
And all the old tiny headstones made like little lambs.... |
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yellojewl
True Blue Farmgirl
72 Posts
Amber
Hurley
MO
USA
72 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 07:12:26 AM
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| I love visiting the cemetaries, too. I have fond memories of Memorial Day afternoons when my mom, me, my aunt(s) and cousin(s) would make the rounds to be sure everything was neat and orderly. We would leisurely walk through each one looking at the tombstones that were unique or ancient. We were taught to be respectful of each of the plots. My mom and aunt would give me and my cousin quick lessons in our ancestory as we came across family members tombstones. I miss doing that. I rarely go anymore. |
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primjillie
True Blue Farmgirl
138 Posts
Jill
Antelope
CA
USA
138 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 07:17:21 AM
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| Add me to the odd lot that love cemetaries. Here in Folsom, CA is a very old one and very neat. The one that made me cry was in the Mendocino Botanical Gardens, which used to be a potatoe farm, I think, was a small plot with a little picket fence. There were only a few graves and most were babies. Such little plots with prairie flowers planted around them - so sad! |
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Rosemary
True Blue Farmgirl
1825 Posts
Virginia
USA
1825 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 09:01:26 AM
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Oh, cemeteries are fascinating. The older the better for me! Once upon a time when I was an actress for a living, I got to spend a summer on Nantucket Island doing summer stock. A short bike ride from the threate was the island's most venerable cemetery. I used to go there during rehearsal breaks to rest and think, the beach being off-limits on days when you had to perform that night. Isn't that Draconian? Anyway, on one of many return visits in subsequent years, I noticed a series of gravestones all had the same dates on them, all the deceased rather young, and some reference to a terrible tragedy. I went to the library and gained access to the microfiche files of the island newspaper dating back to that period (1890 or so, I think) and learned of a boating junket that went horribly wrong, with the young-adult children (boys and girls) of some prominent islanders killed not far off shore. Drink was involved, apparently, and much editorializing went on about that.
One of my favorite tombstones in that cemetery, of which I still have a rubbing somewhere, is of one Thomas Davis of Dorchester, aged 19 years 6 months and so many days, who "departed this life, at sea" back in the time of the great whaling vessels. The stone notes the latitude and longitude of where the ship was when he died on it, from who knows what. I have always felt connected to that seafaring young man for some reason. I wish I knew his whole story. If from Dorchester (Massachusetts? England?), why was he buried on Nantucket? His headstone was one of the expensive kind, so I imagine it wasn't for want of funds that his body wasn't sent home to his family in a pickle barrel, as I've heard they did in those days. Or had his whole family moved to Nantucket? If so, why the pointed reference to Dorchester? Was he a runaway? A criminal? Or one of those many young men of that time who took to sea in search of fortune, maybe a captain's favorite, learning the ropes of a ship he might have dreamed of commanding himself one day? What was his position on that ship? How did he die? Who mourned for him when they heard what had become of him? Who paid for the burial? What did he look like?
In my next life (oh, wouldn't that be fun!?) I want to be a researcher holed up in a dusty library someplace, looking up stuff like this. It's fascinating. Or maybe a glamorous crime-solving detective would actually take care of the research itch, with less chance of developing asthma. ;-) Hey, it worked for Nancy Drew...now, where did I leave the keys to my sporty blue roadster...?
I remember seeing one of those flat-on-the-ground slab kinds of grave stones once when I was a little kid. Maybe I remember it wrong, and it was just from a movie or something, but I'm pretty sure I really saw it. I believe it had a bat's wings on it and the phrase "May She Lie Still." Would you care to spin the tale that ended thus? Hmm. Maybe some Hallowe'en! |
Edited by - Rosemary on Feb 02 2007 09:07:53 AM |
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Marybeth
True Blue Farmgirl
6418 Posts
Mary Beth
Stanwood
Wa 98292
USA
6418 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 09:10:46 AM
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Rosemary you are asking all my questions too. In one tiny cemetary here are about a dozen children all dying in april 1909. Fever? Flu? What tragedy took place? And all the little lamb on babies graves. Mb
www.strawberryhillsfarm.blogspot.com
www.day4plus.blogspot.com
"Life may not be the party we hoped for...but while we are here we might as well dance!" |
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Tracey
True Blue Farmgirl
766 Posts
Tracey
State of Confusion
USA
766 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 09:16:56 AM
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Ah, Rosemary....I shan't be allowing my darling daughter to read your post, I'm afraid, as she'd sit all day in a dusty library reading about the dead, too, given half a chance! It was funny, but there's a casket above ground at this cemetery (what do they call those?) and the concrete is cracking off to reveal the brick beneath it. I asked if she wanted to lye on it and I'd take her picture, lol, and she just looked at me all horrified, saying people found her creepy enough already. Then she lit up like the fourth of July and asked if we could come back and she'd dress dead and I could take pictures! I think she suddenly realized just how much more effective this would be at creeping people out than eating 'Walteroni'!
Here is one of my favorite angels from Bayview.
Visit Quiet Storm, our adopted Mustang! http://wildaboutquietstorm.com
http://carpentercreek.blogspot.com
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Rosemary
True Blue Farmgirl
1825 Posts
Virginia
USA
1825 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 09:21:26 AM
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On the subject of cemeteries, I would like to add a note of jollity. In Washington, DC, Congressional Cemetery was at one time intended to be the resting place for Members of Congress and other dignified folk. Apache Chief Cochise was buried there, as was (so sadly) the first child killed by a motorcar. It's seen better days, and there is always some movement to clean it up, which fails because it's in a very bad part of the city, beset by vandals and heaven knows what else.
Anyway, the Architect of the Capitol or someone in his orbit designed a headstone back in when the cemetery was dedicated, that would be the standard for this place. It was square and stubby, with pyramid on top, really ugly compared with the graceful standards of that Victorian age. I don't know who (George Bernard Shaw? Mark Twain?) but in remarking on this design, some famous person supposedly said it "adds a whole new dimension of terror to death." |
Edited by - Rosemary on Feb 02 2007 09:56:03 AM |
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Rosemary
True Blue Farmgirl
1825 Posts
Virginia
USA
1825 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 09:23:24 AM
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| Marybeth, why not do some research -- or better yet, get some high school kids to do it! It's a great learning experience that I'm afraid kids are missing out on these days, and I'll bet they'd find it interesting. |
Edited by - Rosemary on Feb 02 2007 09:23:37 AM |
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Rosemary
True Blue Farmgirl
1825 Posts
Virginia
USA
1825 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 09:27:08 AM
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Tracey, my sympathies on the warped condition of your DD's mind! I love her already! 
That's a very beautiful picture. You're good at that, by the way. I've noticed. Now I want to post a photo I took many years ago at the Adams Memorial in the Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington DC. It's the famous St. Gauden's statue for which his favorite model, Davida, posed. On the day I took the picture, well, there's a lighting effect on the finger of one hand that took my breath away when I got the prints back. I'll dig it up (no pun intended) at home tonight and post it tomorrow. |
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Rosemary
True Blue Farmgirl
1825 Posts
Virginia
USA
1825 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 09:30:13 AM
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| Bramble, I can't think of how mean a person would have to be to rob a graveyard, but I know they do. I often see small wrought iron fence pieces for sale in antiques shops, and I always say something to the shopkeeper about it, in case they aren't aware of the provenance. I'm sure most of them are, and don't care. <shudder> |
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Rosemary
True Blue Farmgirl
1825 Posts
Virginia
USA
1825 Posts |
Posted - Feb 02 2007 : 09:33:31 AM
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| Robin, that place sounds lovely. Any chance there might be someplace on line where we could see photos of it? |
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Across the Fence: Anyone else enjoy a good trip to the... |
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Anyone else enjoy a good trip to the...
