Being Prepared

I've been shooting pictures of entire cemeteries in the Barre, MA area this past year to upload to findagrave.com.  Most recently I found Riverside Cemetery, which is definitely what I would describe as off the beaten trail.  More accurately it is off the paved trail.  It is located in a wooded recreational area about a mile and a half from Route 62 in Barre (for those not from New England, you pronounce that 'bear - eeee').  Generally I would not have driven off down a dirt road - walked yes, but driven in a vehicle not meant for off - roading - no.  I'd already shot two cemeteries that morning and didn't want to wander aimlessly in the woods when I wasn't even certain this was the correct road.  I've been warned by enough friends that I need to not wander around in the woods alone.  Wolves, you know.

The narrow one lane road wound through the trees, up, down and around.  To my surprise there were a few homes tucked into clearings - that's privacy!  One was appropriately a log cabin.  Recent rains were evident in the erosion and I wondered how far I could or should continue.  Just when I had decided that I was going to turn around in the next possible spot and go back to research the location better, my "cemetery sense" tingled.  Off to my right, down a rutted path and through the sun tickled woods, I could make out a clearing that I felt could be it.  I couldn't see a gate or the headstones, just the hint of a clearing on a rise of land.  That usually means "Cemetery" and usually gives me a burst of energy. 

There it was.  Riverside Cemetery.  It was much larger than I had anticipated with a large white arch at the entrance. I had not planned to stop, but considering it was so far in the woods and I didn't know when I would be back that way, I thought I should start shooting the images of it as well.

Having already shot two cemeteries that leads me to the title - "Being Prepared".  I am generally, in spite of the fact that I was never a girl scout, very prepared.  I get that from my mother.  At her funeral it was said that she was a woman who would produce the makings of a picnic, including a cake from her purse.  It's a bit of an exaggeration, but there was always a spare iced cake in the freezer in case of company.

In general being prepared for shooting the cemetery means to me having at least the following tools in addition to the camera:

• Extra charged batteries (one or two) How many you need depends on the battery life.  Batteries for newer cameras seem to me to last longer - I get four hours each out of the Sony Lithium battery pack for my CyberShot if I am shooting stills (far less if shooting video).  I'd been out shooting already four hours, so these were very useful.
• Extra memory card(s).  When I first started I was using a 1 GB card.  Now I am using 8 and 16 GB cards and have never filled a card of that size in one trip.  For whatever reason, that morning I put an extra in my pocket.  And as luck would have it, halfway through the cemetery, the card in the camera was reportedly full, so I did need it. 
• Soft brushes - to brush off dirt or dust from the face of stones, especially those that are flush to the ground surface.  I am no stranger to grave dirt under the nails though.  I use soft make-up brushes for cleaning up things like mushrooms but for headstones a larger soft brush that will not do any damage to the surface of the stone is useful.
• Food - munchies and water primarily.  I lose track of time and cemeteries do not have concessions.

Those are my basics, but there are more items I have learned are very useful:

•  Mirror or reflective sun shield - With my graceful nature, it is best I do not carry a large mirror in the car, but using a mirror or reflective shield (the foldable sun shield in the car works) you can reflect light against the surface of a stone and hopefully make the lettering on a weathered stone appear with more definition in a photo.

• Spritzer - bottle of water to spritz the stone.  This can help to clean off dirt or tell-tale signs of visiting birds or, in some instances, the water on the stone surface sometimes brings out the stone color in the photo or brightens it.

I don't do restorations or repairs on stones.  My "job" is strictly to digitally record their images and carvings. Restorers have many other tools and skills in their kit.

The one thing I hadn't thought of needing, I did not even own that day.  I do now.  Unbeknownst to me, hunting season opened that day.  Not being a hunter of animals, I hadn't really been paying attention.   I should have been and it is important to pay attention when in "lost" cemeteries, tucked into places such as this one, where hunters are enjoying their time out as well.  I now own a lovely and extremely stylish BRIGHT ORANGE DON'T SHOOT ME I AM NOT A DEER vest to wear over my tan jacket.  

I am thankful that the hunters out that day were more aware than I was. 

Those Murderous Trees!!

Early on in my blog writing about cemeteries I wrote of Thomas Lynch who was killed by a tree at a young age.  Since then I have come across another young man murdered by tree.  The environment is a dangerous place, more so in the 1800's.

In Memory of

Mr.

HENRY BALLARD.

who was killed instantly

in felling a tree

Jan. 12. 1830.

AEt. 36

"There was but a step between me & death"

"Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the

day nor the hour, when the son of man

cometh"

I think I like the older cemeteries because you get this sort of anecdotal information more often.   In the times before information was so easy to find, you documented where you could.  And what better place than on your headstone. 

Finding a Grave

I've been away for a couple of months.  Usually I can't keep myself from writing something but it's been a slightly stressful time and I've been working.  I did take some time to do some volunteer cataloging of cemeteries for Findagrave.com.  I started doing some volunteer photo requests made by people doing genealogy on that site for cemeteries local to me.  In doing this I discovered that I could actually add and manage what they call "Memorials". 

The Cemetery in Warren that I wrote about previously  That's The Rest of the Story...So Far had only one memorial entered until I had entered the Cobleigh monument.  I decided, oddly enough on a fairly damp and drizzly day, I wanted every person in that cemetery to be remembered. (I have issues with being "forgotten" myself, so I assume others should be remembered.). I drove out and I did something I don't generally do.  Instead of wandering and photographing here and there, I examined the layout and started in what I felt was a logical point and took two to three pictures of every single headstone one by one, row by row. 

Then once home and dried off, I went through them and added all the information I could gather and that was readable from the headstones and entered it onto their upload template.  After the upload, I went through and edited and added an image, or in many cases two images, to each listing and linked up husbands and wives, parents and children - if I was absolutely certain.  When I was done I  had added approximately 120 memorials. 

I have gone on since then to do two very small cemeteries in Oakham, Massachusetts - Southwest Cemetery on Lincoln Road (131 memorials - there is one more that is a broken puzzle, I need to see if I can photograph each piece and Photoshop them together to read the names and dates); and Green Hollow on Crawford Road.  Green Hollow happened to have one memorial entered by a family member requesting a photo.  He got a photo and there are now an additional 55 memorials.   I am not terribly interested in the recent dead - and I assume the newer town cemeteries are well documented.  It is those 1700 and early 1800 ones that I am drawn to.

People don't understand why I would do something like this for free.  For me, it fulfills a need I have to do something with a clear start and finish - most of my work does not have that.  And I get to seek out and find all sorts of interesting little cemeteries in beautiful rural locations.  And someone...me...is taking a moment or two to remember each one of those people.  Mothers, Fathers, brothers, sisters, babies, unnamed infants, soldiers. 

Oddly, I don't want a grave or a headstone.  But I want every single one of the people in these to know they are remembered.  I found a small town not far off with 16 little cemeteries, most not cataloged. 16!!!  I am going to go out and shoot four or five at a time. 

East West Which is Best

I went to the Quaker Cemetery in Leicester, Massachusetts today.  It's also known as Spiders Gate or Spider Gates Cemetery because of the iron work gates at the entrance.  I am posting only that picture as there is a request not to post photos of the headstones on the internet.

 

I think they look more like rays of sunshine than a spider's web to be honest.   

The cemetery was as hard to find as I had read, but then for a road not to be labeled in Massachusetts is more the norm than the exception.  There are loads of stories about this cemetery, many a bit sensational.  I had not been to a Quaker cemetery before.  Like other cemeteries of its age, it had large numbers of a few family names - the Earle's, Southwick's, Potter's.  There were a couple things that got me thinking. 

The first thing about this cemetery was that probably 95% of the headstones were identical in size, shape, cut of stone.  They ranged from the mid 1700's to 2009 and yet effort was clearly made to make them as identical and equal as possible.  No one more important than anyone else, it seemed.  That was most likely the Quaker influence.

This cemetery is fairly square in layout with a strong stone fence surrounding.  If, as you stepped in through the spidery gate, you looked to the half to your left, those on the East side.. all of the stones appear to face West.  And looking to the right or West side,  they all appear to face East.  And in the middle of the cemetery is an area within a circle of pines that has an almost ceremonial platform feel.  Perhaps services were held there?  That would make the directions the stones faced seem logical.

I've noticed the tendency for headstones to face a certain direction in most cemeteries. And I've read various articles on why, preparation for the resurrection being the most common reason for feet to be to the the east and the head to the west end, so that a person could sit up at the time of the coming facing the sun.  There are always exceptions to this rule.  I think in modern cemeteries there is more a tendency to face the "streets" in the cemetery so that it is easy to see from the car as you drive by, or face the "view" of the plot, a pond, lake or skyline. 

The thing about this that I found thought provoking today (and once long ago at a mound cemetery in Ohio) is that it was so obvious there was a system, how do you explain the one or, in this case, two exceptions.  A husband and wife,  Charles W. Howe (1821 - 1908) and Mary Anthony Howe (1827 - 1923), found off to the rear on the West side of the grounds, face the perimeter wall.  They face the "wrong" direction according to the system.  Why? 

Their dates don't make them the first interments to the cemetery or the last.  They fall somewhere in the middle after the pattern was established.  There were others near them facing the "correct" direction.  And no obvious earthen based issues that would create the need to flip them.  Was the stone fence added recently?  It doesn't seem so.  I imagine she was simply added facing the same way as he, because she was his widow.

Was there something about them or their lives that created this need to turn the rest of their community's backs on them in perpetuity?  Certainly that would be forgiven in their faith at the time of death?   It just makes me wonder.  

(note to self - later discuss the headstone, footstone practice -  gives the grave the look of a bed, with a headboard and a smaller similar cut footboard, most of which go missing.)

Sinking in

Driving north on Charnock Hill Road in Rutland, Mass, you find yourself on a narrow street lined by tall pine trees so closely seeded by nature as to give you the feel you are driving down a hallway.  Houses to the right, conservation land to the left, the dipping sun narrowly filtering through the trees.  About a mile and a half up the road, on the left you'll see a set of four stone steps that lead to a little rise where Goose Hill Cemetery is. 

The ground is sinking in a uniform patter across the burial area.  Sinking in where pine boxes below have deteriorated and collapsed in on their residents and in turn the ground above them has started to sink down around their bones.  You see this sinking in and you know what it means as you step carefully through the mossy ground cover.   It is just distracting enough that if you aren't paying attention and your next step suddenly sinks down deeply into the moss, it can be startling.  Not to worry, no hands are grabbing your ankles to pull you in.  It's simply layers and layers of soft moss.  Small pine trees have self seeded themselves in the moss all over the area.

Recently I was thinking about what happens when a husband goes first or a wife goes first.  Which leads to a bigger headstone purchase, which leads to a more decorative stone purchase.  Above is a stone for Joseph Smith and three of his wives....they all went before he did.  I'm sure this just replaced their individual headstones, right?

Nearby is the stone of Calvin Smith who died at Plattsburg, NY, War of 1812, says the stone.  My high school history classes having been a long time ago and the War of 1812 even further back.  I had to look up to see how Plattsburg played its role. 

Turns out the battle at Plattsburg, also known as the Battle of Lake Champlain, was fought September 11, 1814.  So it is most likely he died two years after the date on the stone.  We've seen stones before where the carver has run out of space and as you can see in the images of this one, that there is limited space, especially when a stone is shared with others as this one is. Calvin would have been 28 when he died, if we use the date of the battle as his date of death.

On through the moss, is the grave of a younger man, just ten years and seven months old.  A finger points the way to heaven underneath the words "Loved and Early Called".  Clarence E. Birge, son of Ezra and Louisa L. Birge, died at Barre (say it Bear-ee) Nov. 12, 1865.  According to death records he died of typhoid fever.  According to the census records, at the time of his death, he would have had two younger sisters, Stella (approx. 5) and Ella (approx. 2).  In 1870, the family was living in Gardner, MA (north of his burial location in Rutland or the location in which his home states he died, Barre, MA.

This burial ground has some of the most severe lichen damage I've seen on stones.  Many fallen stones are being overcome by the mosses and appear to be pulled down into the ground with their namesakes. Damage to trees from recent year's storms is evident.  Large branches embrace some of the stones.

There were many many unreadable stones, but family names that are evident are Stone, Strong, Chickering, and Green.

Yet another aged lawyer....why do they live so long?

"An honest man is the noblest work of God."  It reads.

Lovewell (aka Nightingale) Cemetery

As I was speeding down Route 68 one day last week, going a little too fast and being tailgated by someone who wanted me to go faster, I spied a tiny cemetery off to my right.  I couldn't stop for fear of causing an accident so I made note to myself to look it up on the map when I got home.  The map said it was called "Nightingale Cemetery" which I thought sounded beautiful.   Just before going I was looking online at a list of cemeteries in Hubbardston and Nightingale was not listed.  Others were, including "Lovewell", which as it turns out, is the also known as for Nightingale Cemetery. 

I stopped a few days later.  The sign is gone, just two white posts standing near each other.  There is an aged white gate blocking entrance from vehicles since it is such a small cemetery and the typical New England stone wall around the edge.

The cemetery is inhabited by the Lovewells, Phillips, Freemans, Allens and others.  Even a couple of Underwoods (who are likely related to my earlier blog family, the Cobleighs).   There is the Deacon Allen family including his wife and his "consort".  Their daughters did not seem to live long, but their son lived to see 50.

The Lovewell Family Genealogy has been done extensively and there seems to be much online:  

This is from:  http://www.nh.searchroots.com/HillsboroughCo/Merrimack/familytrees7.html

"2. JOSEPH, born October 2, 1763; married in Templeton, April 10, 1796, Sarah Wilkinson, born, Needham, May 9, 1768, daughter of Ebenezer and Mary (Gay) Wilkinson. He removed to Hubbardston, Massachusetts. His descendants are numberous. He died November 21, 1814. She died August 29, 1847. Seven children."

What caught my eye about the Lovewell's was that the earliest stones in the burial ground were theirs and also the most recent from the later 20th Century.  I think that shows a strong connection running through the family that modern folks would want to be buried in an older (somewhat neglected) burial ground.  (It would be my choice, but then, I'm not so modern.)

Here are a few of the Lovewell Stones: 

Sarah Wilkenson, wife of Joseph Lovewell, 1767 to 1847

 Martha Lovewell, Died April 13, 1885, at the age of 63 years, 11 months and 7 days.

(every day important)

Joseph Lovewell, died Sept. 7, 1876  & his wife Jerusha, died Jan. 16, 1871  (both having lived into their seventies)

 Madeline Lovewell Freeman, daughter of Roger & Edith W. Lovewell, born Sept 3, 1926  (pre-need monument placement)

 Mildred Willis, daughter of Willis & Mattie Lovewell, died Feb. 8, 1971. (in keeping with the earlier tradition of counting days, she was 74 years, 9 days.

 The Lovewell family is primarily to the left side from front to back as you face the cemetery with some in the middle at the rear.  There are also some lovely slate stones here, with beautiful carvings and one in particular caught my eye.  Chandler Follett, died at the age of 20.  

His epitaph reads:  

"My very short and transcient stay

On Earth how soon it past away

My soul's Eternal fixed state

Is hid from you by solemn fate." 

Love well all.

And the story continues - Merlin C. & Irving V. Cobleigh

In 1865, at the time of the Massachusetts State Census, Irving V. Cobleigh was 4 months old living with his mother at the home of his grandparents in Hubbardston.  His father Merlin was not listed on this cenus - where had he gone?  We know he lives until 1872 from the family headstone.

In 1880, Irving, the only child of Merlin and Sarah born after the epidemic wiped out five of their children, was fifteen.  I don't have results on an 1890 Census.  Twenty years on, in 1900 we find the 35 year old living as a boarder in Pleasantville, Westchester, New York in the home of Martin V. Austin.  That same year on September 19, 1900, he married Elizabeth L. Cone, (born 1866) daughter of  Zachariah Cone and Eliza Parsons, in Norwich, New London, Connecticut.

Fast forward twenty years - 1920, we find him living as the head of the household, age 55, with his wife, Elizabeth Cobleigh, 54 and their two daughters, Helen and Ira, 17 and 16 respectively.  Much smaller families these days. 

What happened to Sarah Underwood's husband, Merlin between 1863 and his death in 1872?

In that same state Census in 1865, Merlin C. Cobleigh shows up in the town of Templeton, Worcester County Massachusetts - not terribly far away.  He is listed as a member of a household that (possibly an apartment building?) lists 30 to 40 people, including his son Amos, now 16.  The census lists Amos as a "Tin Worker".  Merlin, 45 years old, is listed as a "Tin Peddler".  Were there tin companies in Templeton, near Gardner (furniture capital of the world?)

It is possible that farming was not producing the income they needed.  Another baby arrived and Sarah and the baby moved in with her parents while Merlin and Amos went looking for work in town?  Templeton did not look to be a large urban or even growing urban area, like nearby Gardner.

So much changes and so much remains the same over time.  Sickness, economy, family.

There is probably more to this story in New Hampshire and New York.  Perhaps a roadtrip.

And that's the rest of the story...well, so far

I've had need to be driving both north and south along Route 68 between Gardner and Rutland, Massachusetts often during the past few weeks.  You often see things driving one way that you missed driving the other.  Between those two points is a town called Hubbardston, where along that street there are at least five cemeteries.  Warren Cemetery, tucked in under pine and oak trees at the corner of a private street and 68 (across from a flea market, currently closed for the winter - winter - it was 85 degrees this week), is a relatively small, mostly 19th Century burial ground where you find your feet sinking into the deep mossy ground in some spots and crunching over the acorn caps in others.

I stopped here a couple weeks ago and the stones that stood out to me were the family of Perez French as it didn't seem "early American" to me.  Today however, I took a closer look at a large granite stone  that seemed a little out of place to me.  Most of the stones in this burial ground are very severely weathered marble with a number of slates.  This was granite, not weathered, though a bit obscured by lichen.  I realized now that the stone was put up when the last member of the family died in 1916.  Had there been other stones for those that had gone before Sarah P. Underwood, wife of Merlin C. Cobleigh, they were gone and all were combined into this one.  And the information on it was a bit startling and sad but times were hard in the 1860's.

I did a little research when I got home.  There was not a lot I could uncover online.  Vital Records online has Merlin marrying Sarah (daughter of Josiah and Betsey Underwood) when he was 23 and she just 17 years old, May 1st, 1844.  The stone itself gives me the following information:

Based on the stone, they had their first child three years after they were married, in 1847, when Sarah was just twenty.  Baby Diana died sometime during her first year.

In 1851 they had a daughter, Ann.

In 1853, they had a daughter, Emma, who died the next year.

In 1856, they had a son, Myron.

In 1858, they had another son (?), Corin.

In 1860, they had had a third son, Irving.

In 1861, they had a daughter, Ella, who died the next year.

In 1863, they had another baby (sex unstated) who died in infancy

In 1863, Myron (now 7), Corin (5), Irving (3) and Ann (12) all also died. 

Two children died before they were one, and an infant and all the rest of their children gone in the same year.  Eight children over sixteen years.  By the time Merlin was 38 and Sarah, 36 - they had lost eight children.   To me this just felt so devasting for her to try and give her husband children, for him to build a family.  

What could have wiped out the brothers and sisters?  According to epidemic records there were outbreaks of small pox in Pennsylvania in 1860 and 61.  California in 1862-63 and in Boston, PA, NY and the surrounding areas in 1865 to 1873.  Seems likely to me they were victims of this, though I can't find that information for certain.  How difficult to watch your children die one by one until all were gone. Or were they?

I falsely assumed the family ended there.  Merlin died at the fairly young age of 51 and Sarah, according to the stone, lived to nearly 90 years old.  I assumed alone.  Then I realized that if she died in 1916, she must show on some census records.  Indeed, she did. 

The 1880 census shows her as the head of the household in Hubbardston, occupation "Keeping House" and living with her son, Irving, who was 15 years old.  He must have been born after the epidemic in 1865.  In 1880, his occupation was listed as "working on the farm".

The 1910 census shows her in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, her relationship to the Head of the Household, Mr. William H. Hall, was Mother-in-Law!  She did have other children, at least one before the epidemic, Helen, born in 1848, who married William H. Hall April 15, 1866

Helen, was mostly likely the one that brought her mother "home" to Hubbardston to be buried with her husband and eight children, when, according to New Hampshire death records, she died on April 25, 1916.  She had been, according to her death certificate a resident of Brookline in Hillsborough, NH for 17 years, having remained in Hubbardston until 1899.  She died of complications from Arteriol Sclerosis.  Her death certificate was signed by Alpha A. Hall (grandchild?) 

And, since there were more search results, I keep looking.  In the 1850 Census, they were living in Gardner Ma, just up the street from the cemetery.  There was a Massachusetts State Census in 1855 that found the family living in Templeton, Worcester County, MA.  Wow.... guess what? Even more children who had survived the epidemic- Sarah Elizabeth has been born in 1845 (date approx.),  Helen M. (later Hellen Hall) born 1848 (age 7) and Amos J., 5, born in 1850 (approx.).  

So total...at least 12 children, possibly 13!

I was hoping to get a look at the 1870 Census to see if anything else was to be found, but I suspect Irving was the only child born after the epidemic. 

I do find some solace now, knowing that there were children who survived married, carried on and took care of Sarah P. in her later years.  Children's graves are the hardest to see.  And I have to remind myself, I am never seeing the whole picture in any one cemetery.  It takes looking further in census records in particular to delve deeper and further on.

Just to recap:

• On Feb. 12, 1845, they had a daughter, Sarah Elizabeth. (birth records confirm date)
• In 1847, they had a daughter, Diana, who died sometime during her first year. (birth not on record)
• On April 30, 1848, they had a daughter, Helen M. (birth records do not indicate a first name)
• On Oct. 7, 1849, they had a son, Amos Josiah.  (various records reflect date)
• In 1851 they had a daughter, Ann Mary. (Mary from census record, no birth records found)
• On Oct. 3, 1853, they had a daughter, Emma Amelia, who died the next year.  (birth records confirmed)
• On Oct. 17, 1856, they had a son, Myron, in Templeton. (no first name indicated for the male)
• On March 25, 1858, they had another son, Corrin Vasa. (birth records confirmed)
• In 1860, they had had a third son, Irving.  (no record of birth unless he is this next one and the headstone has the wrong birth date on it?)  On Oct. 15,1861, they had a male child - no name indicated on records
• In 1861, daughter, Ella, who died the next year.  (no birth records to confirm)
• On May 12, 1863, they had another baby (a female according to birth records) who died in infancy. 
• In 1863, Myron (now 7), Corin (5), Irving (3) and Ann (12) all also died.
• In 1865, they had a son, Irving.
•  Another son pops up in Marraige records. Merlin E. Cobleigh, born in either 1854 or 1855, married Abby Swinington, on Dec. 25, 1883 (she was born in 1861) in New Hampshire. 

I may just have to go hunting for the Irving and Merlin Cobleighs and the Halls of New Hampshire.  And Sarah Elizabeth...I wonder to whom she was married?

She Sits and She Waits

Generally it seems that when people invest in a headstone and really invest in statuary, it tends towards the saintly stuff - Jesus, Mary, Saints.  At St. Michaels Cemetery in Jamaica Plain (near Forest Hills - exit onto and cross WalkHill Street into St. Michaels) there is quite a large number of saints and angels. Many reaching to heaven, gazing at heaven, holding massive amounts of sorrow in their stone eyes.  And among them, this lovely woman:

 

 She sits, quite calm and patient, arms and legs crossed almost as she had when she sat waiting for the MBTA bus to come along.  In the winter someone embellishes her with a green wreath each year.   I would have to check my records, but I believe I've seen her with a rosary and also a wreath of flowers.  

What I like about her is she feels like someone I could sit with for a while and chat.  And even if her mind wandered a bit, I know she would listen like a kindly old aunt.  And had someone thought to make a place for them, she'd offer cookies and milk. 

Perpetual Care

I was out for a drive yesterday as a reward to myself for something.  The goal was to find a couple used paperback books and stop at any cemetery that beckoned.

I found the paperbacks and was wandering a bit.  I made a turn from Route 20 East in Marlborough on to Stevens Street.  Boom right there was a cemetery.  I rarely take this street.  From first glance it seemed to have a tempting variety of stones and levels (for some reason completely flat cemeteries kind of bore me).  I pulled in and rolled along very slowly until I saw some truly nasty graffiti on a beautiful stone.  It looked as though someone had attempted to rub off some of the letters but apparently gave up. 

It was the stone of Joseph I. and Nellie F. Tayntor at the Rocklawn Cemetery in Marlborough, Massachusetts.  Near as I can tell from googling him, he was a graduate of both Yale College (1878) and Yale University (1905).  There is a Tayntor Street.  And a Hollis Tayntor (graduate of Marlborough High School in 1905) laid out some of the streets in the Prospect Hill area when the population in the town boomed in the early 1900's.  Not at all deserving of this disrespectful graffiti.

I know vandalism goes on.  I just don't see it very often.  And while over all, this cemetery seemed in fairly good shape, it was clearly old and no longer accepting new interments.  But there were many sunken headstones, many tipped over, a large quantity of broken beer bottles and other evidence of loitering without the best of intention. 

It is located amidst a quiet residential area of both older and newer homes on all sides.  I suppose this makes it not only a place where there would be enough traffic to prevent vandalism but also handy for it.  One stone in particular, a large monument said on it  "Perpetual Care".  It towered over two smaller stones that had been knocked from their foundations near the broken bottles.

I understand that the concept of Perpetual Care isn't really realistic.  Space, money, staffing - all in short supply.  Population out of control.  Still this is sad to see at the hands of the living.  Sometimes I tell myself it was rough weather.  


I will go back with a bag and pick up trash. 

Mr. Somers Little Boy

Early in my prowling through local cemeteries here in Massachusetts I noted the same surnames appeared over and over again on schools, roads and headstones.  All the usual suspects, Conants, Ayers, Edgells, appear repeatedly in each early American town.  It is often the unique first names that I find interesting.

Winters Day Somers

Leominster, MA

I wonder if he went through any growing pains with that name in elementary school?  It seems a name that a celebrity of today would saddle their child with.

  

Thankfull, wife of Mr. William Brooks

Concord Center - Main Street Burial Ground

(also known as South Burying Place - late 17th century)

She was thankfully, name after her mother.  That's really lovely.  So often this is only a tradition for males. 

One of my favorite monuments and first names is that of Aurelia Burage from Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain:

Aurelia Burrage

Forest Hills Cemetery

Sculpture by 

Hugh Cairns, 1903

I've always felt that cemeteries are a well of possibilities for writers of fiction who have trouble naming characters.  They are all there just waiting for you to read their names.  

Snow Angels

(I know this is a departure from the purpose of my blog here - to share images and thoughts about stones. Please bear with me.)

I photograph a lot of angels in cemeteries, with or without wings.  Yesterday, I went out and made a less permanent angel of my own as a memorial to Sarah Burke, much decorated freestyle skier, who died at the age of 29 this week from injuries suffered while training on the "Super Pipe".  She lobbied successfully to get her sport into the Winter Olympics in 2014.  She'd fought through other injuries, but this one was too severe.  She was an advocate for female athletes, having had to compete initially herself against boys because there were no female competitions in her sport.  Her smile just lights up the space around her - you can see it in her photos. 

A snow angel as tribute seemed appropriate.

RIP Sarah Burke 1982 - 2012

I have, perhaps a morbid, curiosity about spontaneous roadside memorials.  This is the first time I've felt compelled to do something like it.  So perhaps now I understand the need.

Missing the Point-Meaning or Mistake?

When I first moved to Massachusetts and started to wander cemeteries, the huge number of Masonic symbols was surprising and unfamiliar to me even though my father was a Mason.  (In Ohio, where I am from, I had not seen many of these symbols on headstones.)  The image below is of a Shriner's symbol on a headstone in Ayer, MA (on Route 111 just south of the Rotary).  A Shriner being a Mason who had reached Master Mason level and applied to the Shriners (my apologies for simplifying the definition).

The aspect of this carving that I am baffled by and have not be able to figure out is:  where is the fifth point on the star?  I've researched on line this symbol, read a lot about Shriners, but I don't find anything that might explain what happened to the fifth point (bottom right).  All of the images of various Shriner symbols that I find on line have a full star.

It does look almost as though there is a mark indicating where it would have been patterned for carving.  Was it forgotten by the carver?  or perhaps, did a Shriner have to earn his points? 

Any thoughts? 

Last Words

There was a wonderful television program on a few years back that, unfortunately, only lasted a couple of seasons.  It was called "Dead Like Me".   In a nutshell, it was about a group of characters who had died but before they could pass on to wherever they were to end up, they had to work collecting souls.  It was their job to remove a soul just prior to death (their division was accidents and murder as opposed to soul collectors who worked in divisions that dealt with natural death or plagues - death was very organized right down to the post it notes).  Ellen Muth, an actress we don't really see enough of, starred in this with Mandy Patinkin, Callum Blue and Jasmine Guy.

In one rare episode on a day no one was to die, they had to do paperwork.  Mountains of paper, one sheet for each person had to be sorted and recorded.  The character of Daisy asked how were they to sort them, by first name or last.  I agree with Ellen Muth's character's exasperated response to her that sorting by first name is the most ridiculous suggestion ever (but there are people that do it).   Turns out they were to be sorted by "last words". 

Well, that long intro was leading up to my interest in finding unusual epitaphs.  Normally the epitaph is some flowery oftentimes forced rhyme, quote from a pop song or veiled threat that those of us living will soon be following them and should be prepared.

One of my favorites, I found at St. Michael's cemetery, which butts up against the back of Forest Hills in Jamaica Plain.  Where Forest Hills is a vast rolling garden cemetery of many denominations, St. Michaels is clearly European  in nature with uniform rows of closely placed stones and very Catholic.  The stone read:  "He never lived in the gray areas."  I liked that because I tend towards the black and white in my life.  But having read it, I was a little concerned that it might not be viewed all that positively by everyone.

Recently I found this one in Grove Cemetery in nearby Holden MA:

 

"Meet me in Heaven, she said."  I imagine, perhaps too romantically, that these were her last words and that her lover was there at her bedside to hear them. 

Clearly what to put on a headstone is a tough decision generally left for the living.  To use a person's last words is a wonderful idea.  It does makes one hope to have something brilliant and memorable to say at the end with that final  breath.  Unfortunately, it's probably not likely.  I suspect I will say something like..."don't forget the rabbit bites,"  But gee I hope the pet rabbit goes before I do (mostly because he bites the hand that feeds him). 

Simply put:

At Rest

Accepted

Fell Asleep

Edgell Grove Cemetery, Framingham, MA

Felled by a Tree

In a small cemetery just north of the intersection of Routes 140 and 190 on the outskirts of Princeton, Sterling and West Boylston, MA, there are family plots and individual graves that range from the late 1700's to the twentieth century.   I park near the mini-storage behind the cemetery and enter through what's left of the old metal gate at the back.  There are many sunken graves, oddly not the oldest ones.  Off to the rear on the far side is the headstone below.  Thomas Lynch, just 21, was killed by the fall of a tree in January of 1820.  

Recently in a local cemetery in another rural area, I noticed what to me was a high number of deaths of people in their twenties all during the past ten years.  It is less common in the present to die so young and I have the internet to figure out what the cause might have been (because I am nosy....or curious).  In Mr. Lynch's case, his headstone reveals the cause, but not much more. Thomas Lynch, killed by the fall of a tree. It is a tease. Was he taking the tree down as part of his work?  Did a heavy winter snow storm bring down the tree? How long had he been here from Ireland?  What family were with him?  Was he working to bring them over?  

I clearly have more questions than could ever be answered on a headstone. His stone sits far off in a corner of the cemetery by itself.  If there are others in his family buried near him, their stones have gone missing. 

 

His epitaph is one I have seen before and a favorite of mine.

 

"Life is a span, a fleeting hour,

How soon the vapour flies.

Man is a tender transcient flower

That in the blooming dies."

Flowers are pretty much on their way out once they bloom, some just have a longer blossoming period than others.

RIP Thomas.

Resting in Peace

Forest Hills Cemetery on the edges of Jamaica Plain in Boston has some esteemed "residents" and some fascinating sculptural monuments. I was first drawn here in search of e. e. cummings' grave. I've been there numerous times over the past ten years and this past summer was the first time I'd come across these monuments.

Two child-sized unmade beds with one pillow on the ground nearby, they are wonderfully detailed down to the dust ruffles, creases in the pillows and sheets.  Known for its art installations and exhibitions, I am not certain if these are actually headstones or part of a permanent installation.  They bear no reference to an individual or family.

As statuary go, they are unique and fascinating to me.  As a sign of the afterlife - well, I don't make my bed now, I am certainly not going to start making it after I die.  

Three Children

There are times when I think I've been visiting cemeteries too much.  But I am always drawn to them.  The sight of a headstone through trees is exciting.  It's never just about taking pictures.  It's thinking about who 'they' were, how long or short their lives were, in this case children...

Not long ago I stopped at an old cemetery in Sterling, MA.  I'd passed it by many times.  It was a head-turner, slate stones!  I pulled in one day and parked in the middle.  There were children playing in a yard that abutted the cemetery:  three little girls.  They came into the cemetery when they saw me wandering through the headstones.  They watched me.  I watched them.  They started to play hide and seek among the stones.  The older one clearly knew where the little ones were and pretended she didn't so that the game would last longer, would be more fun.  I like her.  I could feel she was a good sister to them, or friend.

It was nice for me to have others there enjoying the cemetery.  I wandered away from them. 

Down at the other end of this cemetery I cam across a headstone shared by three other children-Sarah, Thomas and James.  These three together sharing a stone all died within a week of one and other over two hundred years ago.  Maybe they played hide and seek nearby before they got sick from some illness that today wouldn't take their lives.

 

Chocksett Cemetery, Sterling, MA

Sarah, Thomas and James Sawyer

Children of Mr. Thomas and Abigail Sawyer

Sarah Died Sept. 26, 1756, Thomas, Sept. 28, 1756 and James Oct. 3, 1756

Their ages ranged from 6 to 17.