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.