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.