I went to the funeral of a dear friend this week. So close that I would call him family really. Considering how much time I spend in cemeteries, I can probably count on one hand (wait, I left out Uncle Henry, so two hands) the number of funerals I have been to.
This was the first time I experienced being around the home during the planning part of the process. Without going into much detail, I discovered it wasn't quite what I thought it would be. I hadn't factored into the process that not everyone would want an obituary or a service. I hadn't factored into the process that everyone believes something different and may not even plan to ever visit the cemetery. Not visit a cemetery?? How could that be? Well, to be honest, I haven't visited my mother or father's graves once since their funerals. I've visited the graves of hundreds if not thousands of others....hmmm....
I hadn't wanted to ask too many pointed questions and kept looking
for an obituary not realizing that there would not be one. Hmmmm....how
then, I wondered, did friends and acquaintances find out? "Those who
need to know, know." True and with the internet, word will spread even
without the traditional channels.
To me, most of the process, writing an obituary, selecting a spot in the cemetery, selecting an urn or coffin, coming up with something to say at the service, was sort of a tradition or an obligation. It is what is expected. But it isn't an obligation at all. It's whatever the the deceased had planned or the living decide to do. And everyone is different. Everyone grieves differently, so the outcome can be very different in different families.
I think most of what we do when someone has died is for others - all the notifications and such. It allows them to learn of the death without us making a lot of emotional phone calls. Texting just wouldn't be right would it? It is more and more right than you would imagine. A service and burial doesn't ever give the close loved ones closure. That, too, is for the others. Once that part is over, those folks go back about their daily lives and you get to grieve in private as you need to. It gets them out of your hair. And whether or not anyone plans to or ever does visit the grave site selected is really irrelevant.
The people you lose that held a spot in your heart aren't there at the cemetery, they are in your heart where they always were and always will remain.
I will visit this grave, not because I think he is there (I don't believe he is) but just because, it was a nice spot and it will be a quiet space where I can remember. And because I like cemeteries.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Missing Remains....My Internal Debate
I love cemeteries, as is evidenced by the massive amount of time I spend in them, taking pictures, remembering and memorializing on behalf of people I don't know. I love the small seventeenth and eighteenth century cemeteries near where I live and also the large rolling garden cemeteries. That being said, I would prefer a green, unmarked burial myself. I have a connection to nature and want to just return to it, but also I have self esteem issues and don't believe anyone would visit my grave. Space is also a consideration - is there room for the space required for vaults and coffins and all? And what are we preserving those bodies for?
Until green cemeteries began to grow (so to speak) in popularity, my choice was cremation and some sort of potentially illegal distribution by wind...or water. I was reading an article today about missing cremains. Here is the link: http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/special-reports/special-grave/nXdsk/.
I am struck by a number of things in this article. Mostly, the complete ineptness of a cemetery management company that they misplaced not only a container of remains, but a vault and personal mementos and are making the suggestion that someone had a motive to remove or steal them. Let's face it, they lost them, they were never interred to start with or they were interred in the wrong grave site and will never be found. Apparently interring people or their remains in whatever form in the wrong grave is a common occurrence. How often is probably impossible to know unless someone questions it. But who goes back to the grave after the funeral and how soon after?
How many funerals have you been to where you have returned to the grave later to visit? I've never been back to my father's grave (of course that is because I didn't really enjoy his company when he was alive). I would, I suspect, find it difficult to locate the exact section even though I consider myself to have a good memory and an affinity for directions. Often when I speak with people or go with them to look for someone, they have a very different idea of the location of the grave based on their recollection of the funeral. Emotion and memory are tricky. So you wander and wander until you find it or give up. Or you ask for a map. You get a map and it is not even close to your recollection, but do you question it when you find the headstone with the name? Not likely. You accept the name on the monument as verification that you were wrong and they are right.
This family has been visiting their father's grave for sixteen years. Sixteen years!! And there is nothing there. To be honest I feel they have every right to run that cemetery management company through the courts as far as they can. They paid a hefty price (just guessing) for the cremation, the container, the vault, the opening of the grave, the interment...it all adds up. They paid for a service and were cheated. They trusted and were let down.
But I also feel that people we loved aren't tied to that location where we leave their mortal remains. I think they are tied to our hearts and our memories. I don't think it matters where I am or where their remains are when I recollect our times together or my feelings about the loss of them. That they went there regularly for sixteen years, reflects on how much they loved him and his memory lives on beautifully in their hearts. It doesn't really matter that he wasn't in that exact spot.
I realize that in saying this, I am contradicting my own obsession with visiting cemeteries which is just another issue for therapy.
Until green cemeteries began to grow (so to speak) in popularity, my choice was cremation and some sort of potentially illegal distribution by wind...or water. I was reading an article today about missing cremains. Here is the link: http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/special-reports/special-grave/nXdsk/.
I am struck by a number of things in this article. Mostly, the complete ineptness of a cemetery management company that they misplaced not only a container of remains, but a vault and personal mementos and are making the suggestion that someone had a motive to remove or steal them. Let's face it, they lost them, they were never interred to start with or they were interred in the wrong grave site and will never be found. Apparently interring people or their remains in whatever form in the wrong grave is a common occurrence. How often is probably impossible to know unless someone questions it. But who goes back to the grave after the funeral and how soon after?
How many funerals have you been to where you have returned to the grave later to visit? I've never been back to my father's grave (of course that is because I didn't really enjoy his company when he was alive). I would, I suspect, find it difficult to locate the exact section even though I consider myself to have a good memory and an affinity for directions. Often when I speak with people or go with them to look for someone, they have a very different idea of the location of the grave based on their recollection of the funeral. Emotion and memory are tricky. So you wander and wander until you find it or give up. Or you ask for a map. You get a map and it is not even close to your recollection, but do you question it when you find the headstone with the name? Not likely. You accept the name on the monument as verification that you were wrong and they are right.
This family has been visiting their father's grave for sixteen years. Sixteen years!! And there is nothing there. To be honest I feel they have every right to run that cemetery management company through the courts as far as they can. They paid a hefty price (just guessing) for the cremation, the container, the vault, the opening of the grave, the interment...it all adds up. They paid for a service and were cheated. They trusted and were let down.
But I also feel that people we loved aren't tied to that location where we leave their mortal remains. I think they are tied to our hearts and our memories. I don't think it matters where I am or where their remains are when I recollect our times together or my feelings about the loss of them. That they went there regularly for sixteen years, reflects on how much they loved him and his memory lives on beautifully in their hearts. It doesn't really matter that he wasn't in that exact spot.
I realize that in saying this, I am contradicting my own obsession with visiting cemeteries which is just another issue for therapy.
Friday, December 28, 2012
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:
Those are my basics, but there are more items I have learned are very useful:
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
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.
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.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
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.)
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