Lindsey Palka’s previous work for The Toast can be found here.
Who likes cemeteries? Cemeteries, as a rule, are not very popular places. Today they are pretty well ignored (with a few famous exceptions) unless people are attending a burial or visiting a family stone. But this hasn’t always been the case.
A graveyard can be a great place to explore local history and genealogy, or just take a peaceful autumn walk. So let’s grab our coats and cameras and head out to the nearest cemetery to learn about local history! I will teach you how to read a cemetery so you have a better idea of what you’re looking at and can impress others with your knowledge. There are a few guidelines we should remember to follow when exploring graveyards, in the interest of safety and courtesy:
1. Be respectful. Society has deemed that cemeteries are quiet places of rest, so when exploring, please keep that in mind—try to avoid shouting in glee when you find a particularly awesome stone, especially if you’re visiting an active cemetery. Avoid walking directly over graves, as this is both frowned-upon and considered bad luck by the superstitious among us (headstones are at the head of the grave, so walking between graves or closely behind headstones is usually the safest bet).
2. Obey all posted rules, including (at almost all cemeteries) no dogs. Please don’t get kicked out of a cemetery after I encouraged you to go and explore.
3. Be careful. Cemeteries are often in isolated areas, and this is the kind of activity that’s more fun with a buddy anyway. Try to rope a friend into exploring with you. Abandoned cemeteries or ones that have not been well-kept can be dangerous–with sunken places, tumbled headstones, and other hazards–so watch your step as well.
4. Don’t damage any gravestones. Take plenty of photos, but avoid stone rubbing or putting anything onto the stones themselves, as this can be damaging.
If you’re lucky enough to live near a large, famous cemetery, there will probably be a map at the entrance and perhaps some information about the park–more if it’s a tourist destination. Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, Highgate Cemetery in London, Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, and Mount Auburn Cemetery in Massachusetts are probably some of the most famous (excluding military cemeteries like Arlington National Cemetery and battlefield cemeteries). But most of us will be visiting smaller, local cemeteries without maps to guide our way. Once you’re familiar with the basics of a cemetery, you’ll be able to know exactly what you’re looking at without needing a guide.
Like anything else, headstones go in and out of fashion. The oldest stones that most of us are likely to see were made out of slate, for its ease of carving. Generally these were curved or shaped on the top end like the stereotypical children’s-drawing-style of a gravestone. They usually had simple inscriptions, and many also had carvings on the top of a “death’s head” (a skull with wings) or a cherub’s head.
But slate is not the hardest stone, and it tends to break and shatter easily, which is why many of these stones sport broken tops. Much more common in North American cemeteries are marble stones. The switch from slate to marble (known as the slate-to-marble transition among the people who study gravestones for fun and profit–probably a great number than you imagined, but still not very many people) coincided with the early part of the 19th century, which is why very few slate gravestones are seen in the parts of North America that were not widely settled at that time.
Marble is a wonderful stone. There’s a reason it’s been popular for sculpture for many hundreds of years. Beginning in the early 19th century, it became cost-effective to ship it long distances, and suddenly marble was commercially available in North America in immense quantities. Its ease of workability meant that gravestones were no longer limited to a few basic designs. Common choices, among the many options, included a rose (to symbolize the bloom of life), a hand pointing upwards (indicating that the deceased had proceeded decorously to heaven), an open gate (representing the Pearly Gates), a set of clasped hands (whether this was intended to signify a married couple or the deceased grasping the hand of God is a matter of some debate), a Bible open to a certain verse, a pair of praying hands, an angel, a willow and urn (an extremely popular mourning motif through the Georgian period that persisted well into the Victorian era), and dozens more.
Mourning was an important social ritual during the Victorian period, and thus cemeteries had an important place in the social sphere. “Modern” cemeteries arose in the 1820s and 1830s, and were carefully designed to be very different from the traditional churchyard, where bodies were buried in the same graves over and over again. These were thought to be dangerous hotbeds of disease, and often a burial would turn up a bone or two, much to the horror of onlookers. Victorian cemeteries, by contrast, were carefully laid out like parks, with paths, trees, ponds, and benches.
A cemetery was one of the first places where upper- and middle-class Victorian women could wander unchaperoned and unmolested. Cemeteries were thought to be extensions of the home (of which women were the chatelaines and guardians, of course), and hence an appropriate place for women to attend at their leisure. Women took full advantage of this freedom, and frequently walked and talked with their friends as they would in an ordinary public park, without worrying that men would bother or accost them.
While mourning and ritual surrounding death was becoming an even bigger part of the social routine, grave markers began to grow larger and more creative. Wealthy families began to put up obelisks and large monuments, including sculptures of crosses and angels. Occasionally you will spot a truly unusual piece of sculpture dating from the sentimental late Victorian period, such as the sculpture of an empty chair on a child’s grave, or a sculpted dog forever waiting for his master.
The First World War, oddly enough, dealt a major blow to mourning culture. Just as extreme mourning clothing was no longer dictated for women, sentimental marble tombstones began to decline in popularity as well. Simpler and less elaborate stones made out of granite and polished granite grew more popular, and marble stones featuring flowers, angels, and so on began to seem old-fashioned and quaint.
This period also saw the rise of “lawn” cemeteries. While the Victorians felt that a cemetery with hundreds of marble stones of every shape and size was a beautiful and affecting sight, people in the early part of the 20th century felt differently. “Memorial parks,” as they were known in some places, were considered to be much more tasteful. These featured only stones flat to the ground, creating an unbroken sweep of lawn thought to be much more pleasing to the eye. Granite and polished granite stones laid flat to the ground often featured only a name, but some included modern designs in keeping with the zeitgeist of the year of the burial.
Most cemeteries today are “mixed,” meaning that they feature both flat and raised grave markers. Modern grave markers are usually made out of different varieties of polished granite. Lawn cemeteries are quite common, especially in the West.
Because cemeteries are so closely associated with local history and culture, there are uncountable variations and unusual sights. In some pioneer cemeteries, particularly in the West, one may occasionally spot a gravestone with a sliding glass window (almost invariably broken). The idea was that the paper could contain a much more detailed account of the deceased’s life and times, but this idea was destined to fail as it proved nearly impossible to make an airtight, watertight glass that would not break. Only a few stones with these sliding panels remain.
In the American Midwest, a fashion persisted for a few years in the 1870s and 1880s for monuments made out of zinc, known euphemistically as “white bronze.” These monuments looked from a distance to be exactly like marble, but featured even greater detail. Generally now they can be spotted either by their unusually well-maintained engravings or by a rusty spot by a rivet. To knock gently on them produces an echoing reverberation—they are hollow inside.
In the American South, African American communities sometimes chose to decorate graves with broken glass to produce a light-catching effect. These are very rare and hard to spot nowadays unless you are visiting a private or family graveyard, as glass containers are outlawed in most cemeteries. Occasionally it is possible to visit a preserved slave cemetery as well, which usually feature gravestones made exclusively of local stone and hewn by hand. In cemeteries in the South that have Civil War burials, some headstones will face the opposite direction—north or south, depending on the leanings of the deceased.
Many cemeteries did not survive the massive postwar building boom in North America in the state their original founders might have wished. Smaller cemeteries in many suburbs can now be found just on the edges of strip malls, or on the corners of busy intersections, when at their founding they were located near churches or in open fields.
When examining gravestones, a flashlight can be used to illuminate or create shadows, making faded engravings easier to read. Bring along the largest mirror you can carry easily and lay it so it creates a 90-degree angle with the surface of the stone–the reflection should show the engraving in much greater clarity! And don’t forget your camera. Digital pictures can also be a great boon to researchers, since playing with contrast and other features can make it easier to read a faded stone.
When exploring your local cemeteries, always be respectful. Cemeteries are not only a final resting place for the dead. They often give us a fascinating look into the tastes of an era, as well as its dangers–as you will see if you visit almost any cemetery that accepted burials prior to 1920, as it will include many, many stones to children as well as young women who died in childbirth. These places are free to visit and interesting to explore, and now you’re equipped with the tools to interpret what you’re looking at. Enjoy your walk through history, and as you explore our cemeteries today remember the Victorians who gave us these modern cemeteries in the first place.
Tags: ghosts, graveyards, history, lindsey palka
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I love cemeteries! Nice to know I’m not alone. Thanks for these tips. I used to take my toddler son with me on trips to cemeteries for on an amateur history project I was working on and he totally didn’t understand the “be respectful” thing. It was actually funny in a morbid way because I’d get the camera out to photograph a gravestone and he’d think “It’s picture time!” and get behind the stone and mug for the camera. Lil psycho.
Have you been to the Titanic graveyard? There is a Titanic graveyard, right? I think I read about it a while ago. I really really want to go. Go and be sad. It’s a good idea for a trip, right?
My grandparents took me to a lot of cemeteries for funerals when I was a toddler. They called it the quiet park, and if I stayed quiet at the quiet park, they would take me for ice cream afterwards.
This was very interesting, thank you!
I worked in an old-but-still-active cemetery cutting grass one summer, and I would add one thing to your list of possible cemetery hazards: There may be headstones that are still standing but are on the verge of falling down. Some of them are very heavy, and would definitely hurt you if they fell on you. Because of this it’s wise to avoid leaning on headstones, or putting your hand on them for balance.
…Actually, some of the headstones that were unstable were not all that old. I think their stability is affected by things like the type of ground and how they were installed and how on top of things the maintenance people are (assuming there are maintenance people).
A few years ago, my small community was rocked when a young girl was crushed to death by a falling headstone when she was playing in the church graveyard after Bible School. It was a terrible thing, but it inspired some good as many of the older cemeteries in my area were restored or effort was put into making them safer than they had before. I live in an area FILLED with tiny family and community cemeteries and they can be so unstable, considering how little upkeep is done.
this is a great article! really interesting and informative!
there’s a cemetery near here (mountain view cemetery in oakland) that is huge (200+ acres?) and beautiful and it’s almost like a public park. people walk their dogs, i’ve seen kids learning to bike, even people having picnics. i’ve gone on dates there.
it is, however, a pretty staid cemetery. a fair amount of fancy crypts and obelisks, but mostly just simple, no-frills headstones. i kind of wish there were more fancy statues and crying angels, etc.
Yay cemeteries! I would highly recommend this section of the Green Chain walk to Londoners, which takes you through, I think, three of them.
The cemetery near me is a very popular destination for dog walkers, although I think they’re supposed to be on a leash at all times. I can see why: one time when I was taking pictures and my husband was sitting in the grass reading, a rhodesian ridgeback crept up behind him and licked him on the neck. I can see how this would be a bit spooky for actual mourners.
Yay ridegbacks! My neighbour in Missouri had one, and as a puppy this dog could leap 6 ft straight up into the air. He would not jump over the 4 ft fence between our yards though, because he was afraid of it. When he was full grown, this dog could hold a soccer ball in his mouth. He would stand on his side of the fence jumping up and down if my siblings and I were in our yard until we opened the gate and let him in. We’d play fetch with him with a soccer ball. He wanted to be friends with our little beagle, but alas the beagle was terrified of him. Such fun dogs!
Eek! (I have a rhodesian ridgeback mutt who looks like Anubis himself, so I am imagining that experience as very spooky indeed.)
One of the reasons why I’m not too interest in cremation when I die (jk I will never die) is that I like the idea of people wandering through a cemetery and taking even a momentary interest in my old headstone. It makes me feel like I’ll have a permanent place in the world. I always enjoy a walk through a nice quiet cemetery, like the time my friend and I had a long afternoon to kill in Cambridge and discovered by means of a quiet fall graveyard that apparently every man, woman, and child in the Boston-area between 1600 and 1750 was named Jacob Watson.
I don’t know what it’s like in America, but in NZ and a few countries in Europe I’ve seen a number of headstones above buried cremains – takes up less space, but is still permanent.
My grandfolks (in Canada) are both cremated and buried beneath headstones.
This is common in Australia too. My Mum’s family has a family plot in a country town cemetery where all my family are from, and the most recent additions (my grandparents) were both cremated but have plaques marking it, and an engraving on the large monument in the plot as well.
My grandparents were cremated, and are interred together under a lovely granite headstone overlooking the lake at the cabin they built.
The Ozarks have a lot of very small, old (for North America) cemeteries. You’ll be walking down an old country road in search of a geocache, and at the top of a hill you’ll find yourself looking down into a small dale with maybe 20 headstones. Probably 10 of them are broken, and of those that are mostly in one piece, about 1/3 will be completely illegible. There are walnut and black oak trees all around you, and heavy branches litter the ground, courtesy of a recent thunderstorm.
I grew up in the Ozarks, and in addition, there are lots and lots of homemade stones and markers – some engraved, some just shaped hunks of rock the size of a hefty book – from a much later date than you would think.
There’s a lovely big cemetery right around the corner from my house. I walked there often this past fall. At one point I found an old stone staircase, down a path behind a wooden gate (yes, I hopped the gate; yes, I am terrible). Anyway the staircase was really beautiful and secluded. I was very excited to find a place to truly be alone in my little noisy city! And then I saw a broken glass pipe on one of the treads and my dream of having a place all to myself died. Also I’m kind of scared to go back because drugs.
One of the most fantastic cemeteries I’ve ever had the fortune to explore was La Recoleta – they favor above-ground vaults a bit more, but it was stunning.
Recoleta is fascinating–like a city of its own! My friend and I happened to go on what turned out to be the anniversary of Eva Peron’s death. It was impressive and thought-provoking to see how many people were still honoring her.
Here are some cool gravestones I saw in the motherland:
this one
these two ballers
this adorable skull
hmu if you are interested in more, I have photos from Fluntern Cemetery in Zurich, Mirogoj Cemetery in Zagreb, and the old German cemetery in Sighisoara.
That skull really is adorable.
It’s the lopsided crossbones.
Love this!
I always recommend a trip in the fall to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery if you’re in the NYC area.
My parents were very into genealogy and we used to have frequent picnics in graveyards when I was a kid so that my mother could collect valuable info or grave rubbings or what have you. I have always loved them, but retroactively feel guilty about having such a blast in them when I was young. I have a very vivid memories of trying to chip overcooked brownies out of a pan while sitting on someone’s ACTUAL TOMB as a fairly mortified elderly couple walked by making disapproving noises.
Ah, so up my alley! I had no idea about the zinc and glass. My town in Tennessee is home to a great many intriguing church cemeteries, some stuck in odd places like the middle of neighborhoods (with the church long-gone). My favorite undergrad project involved an art history report on cemetery stones over time. I still have a rubbing in my office that says “Beware kind friends, as you pass by/ As you are now, so once was I.” Sick burn, dead guy. Sick burn.
ahhhhh, this reminds me of a gravestone my mother remembers from this very old cemetery in a rural-ish town in Ukraine. It rhymes in Ukrainian, but translates to “you who walk past should know/ that you are just visiting/ and I am home.” I can understand why she never forgot it.
Ah, I might like that one even better! Creepy, creepy.
“As I am now, so you will be/ So be prepared to follow me.”
Mr. BHam’s family lives 15 minutes from Mt. Auburn in MA and we go there nearly every time we visit. Growing up in Massachusetts, I’ve been on, like, a thousand field trips to cemeteries/graveyards (Salem Witch Trials, anybody?) but I think it might be a New England/old parts of the US thing to do that?
A cemetery was one of the first places where upper- and middle-class Victorian women could wander unchaperoned and unmolested. Cemeteries were thought to be extensions of the home (of which women were the chatelaines and guardians, of course), and hence an appropriate place for women to attend at their leisure. Women took full advantage of this freedom, and frequently walked and talked with their friends as they would in an ordinary public park, without worrying that men would bother or accost them.
I am fascinated by this part. Can anyone point me in the direction of works that discuss it in detail?
Same here re: being fascinated by this part! Had no idea that cemeteries were once considered part of a woman’s domestic sphere.
Also hoping some kind soul might share more information on this.
Hello! I’m glad you liked it. I’m wracking my brains to come up with a work that doesn’t go into disgusting academic detail, but Sarah Rutherford’s The Victorian Cemetery is a good place to start! The Victorian Celebration of Death by James Curl is probably the most-used work on the subject but can be hard to find. I have not yet read Beyond Grief by Cynthia Mills, but I heard it’s pretty good? Victorian America touches on it to some extent.
Tracy Chevalier’s novel Falling Angels is basically all about cemeteries and the suffragette movement and it’s great and very well-researched for a fictional novel!
Years ago, a friend and I spent an afternoon wandering around the old cemetery in New Haven, trying to find the oldest graves. There was one man buried there who was born in the 1620s, I think. And a lot of those 18th-century slate grave markers with the death’s heads. We found a whole cluster of young men who all died in or around the same year (in the 1780s, IIRC) and speculated as to whether there’d been an epidemic among the Yale students, or maybe just a particularly deadly fad for dueling. Kind of morbid of us, I suppose, but fascinating.
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is on my list, for some time when I feel like heading out of New York on a weekend. But I still haven’t been to Green-Wood Cemetery, or Woodlawn up in the Bronx.
I had a great time wandering around the Old Baptist Cemetery in Hannibal, MO last summer – it’s widely supposed to be the model for the one Mark Twain used as a setting in Tom Sawyer, and was in use officially up to the Civil War and unofficially until maybe the thirties. (I took a ghost tour, of course – out at midnight with dowsing rods and flashlights. I didn’t see any ghosts, but I did see a lot of awesome graves and I didn’t twist my ankle, so I’m calling it a success.)
I nearly posted this in the Roundup this morning, but this is a much more appropriate place for this from the Guardian today.
Thanks for that fascinating article! My favorite part was the giant cemetery named “Necropolis”
Thank you for this! Cemeteries are so great, and I’m lucky enough to have a really good one (with a special Catholic section that is especially beautiful) in my town. There’s even a small, decayed and abandoned-looking family mausoleum with the name (I shit you not) USHER spelled across the lintel.
Thumbs down to Lawn Cemeteries, though. Ugh. Easier to mow, yeah, but talk about *cough* soulless.
One of my favorite memories, soon after moving to Washington, DC, was looking for some ancestor or another’s grave in Oak Hill Cemetery. It is beautifully landscaped with lots of the old Victorian monuments, and is particularly beautiful when the leaves change.
Also in DC, I also used to live around the corner from Congressional Cemetery, which is off the beaten path but also very interesting. It is both an active cemetery and a dog park– people who make a regular donation to the cemetery can let their dogs run around off-leash during certain hours. There’s also a cherry blossom walk that is really pretty in the spring.
I enjoy walking in cemeteries–it’s so peaceful, and I like to think that the dead appreciate being remembered, even just in passing by a stranger. And they give a fascinating glimpse of history. At one of the older cemeteries in my town, there are a noticeable number of graves of people who I think probably died in the flu epidemic of 1918-19. And I enjoy the Victorian ones that take the notion of a family tree entirely literally–the parents’ gravestone will be carved like a treetrunk/stump, and their descendants all get smaller logs.
Some cities were hit so hard by flu epidemics that they have monuments to flu victims in general! Just as how there are monument for the dead of wars and local disasters.
The family log stones are some of my FAVOURITES. I love them.
While doing a photo project for a friend of mine (and the accompanying research to be able to tell her accurate things about my city), I learned that the cemetery in my suburb ‘allowed’ a certain number of people of Hawaiian and Japanese descent to be buried there, but almost no Chinese or First Nations people. In fact most (all?) of the Chinese people who were buried there were later exhumed and their bones shipped back to China. I think my eyes nearly dropped out of my head at that point in the book.
I think that shipping Chinese immigrants’ remains back to China used to be quite a common tradition. Something about returning to the homeland, being closer to the ancestors (?). I remember reading somewhere that Chinese immmigrants who came out to NZ for the gold rush were often (usually?) buried in NZ, and then when their family/friends had raised enough money the graves were exhumed and the bones sent ‘back home’ to China.
Could be the case! It was just that on top of them not having been permitted to be buried in there in the first place, then only a few in a segregated section, this after-the-fact exhumation seemed like the final racist snub, you know?
Yup, in parts of China (I’m not sure and don’t want tos peak for all of China) it was traditional and expected for Chinese who died overseas to be exhumed and sent home for final interment once their families had raised enough money. So that part wasn’t racist in and of itself.
But it is also common (or was common) for some places to have restrictions on who could or could not be buried somewhere. Plenty of cemeteries had segreated “Coloured” sections or sections for people who weren’t Protestant or weren’t of Anglo descent or whatever.
Thank you for writing this! I love, love, love cemeteries, although I don’t really care for the lawn style.
If anyone ever gets the chance to visit London, take a morning to go on a tour of Highgate Cemetery, specifically the by-guided-tour-only west cemetery. It’s one of the most fascinating, beautiful places I’ve ever been. The abundance of styles and motifs and art is spectacular, you get a great deal of information about Victorian life and death, and it’s just everything you could ever hope for a jumbled old cemetery to be.
Thanks to all for your kind words on this! I would also like to point out that several of the photos were taken by me and my dad (who was a professional photographer, that’s why his are better), and the flat stone for Jozef Leveck is my great-grandad.
Thanks for all reading!
Totally different than most cemetery experiences, but if you happen to be nearby I highly recommend Westwood Village Memorial Park. Most people think of Forest Lawn as where you go to see graves of dead celebrities but Westwood Village is the size of a postage stamp and has to have the highest density of recognizable names of pretty much any graveyard in the world. Lots of comedians buried there who tried to one-up each other with funny epitaphs, that kind of stuff. My grandparents’ ashes are under the tree near the chapel, otherwise I’d never have gone there, but it was actually a lot of fun to check out all these amazing graves while waiting for the interment to begin. It made me wish I’d gone there under happier circumstances.
Cemeteries are amazing and so is this article! So much good stuff. Any tips on further reading for gravestone iconography? (Death’s Heads, <3 u)
My mom loves cemeteries. I remember once we had a picnic in one when I was in middle school. (We were careful not to sit over any of the graves.) After we ate we went and found people with the same birthdays as us.
There was also a cemetery across the street from Dairy Queen, and sometimes my mom would insist we cross the street and eat our ice cream there. This resulted in a lot of eye rolls from middle school me, but now I think of it as kinda cool.
Just in case anyone hasn’t heard of it, http://www.findagrave.com/ is starting to become a very thorough database of graves. It can be very exciting to find your ancestors! And if you need a particularly nerdy/morbid hobby, you can contribute by going out an photographing graves!
A while back a colleague and I went to a professional conference that was in her hometown, and she took me out into a more run-down neighborhood to an old cemetery to show me six generations of her family. Best EVER. She is still completely stunned that I enjoyed that so much.
I like the mirror idea! I’ve revisited cemeteries in early morning and late evening when the sun highlights the inscriptions for my camera.
I prefer slate to marble; text and images are as vivid today as when the stone left the carver’s shop 230 years ago.
http://newbostonhistoricalsociety.com/cemetery.ht… has examples of slate, marble, white bronze and granite.
I love exploring graveyards! My local church where I used to live was a beautiful building dating back to Norman times with a big and very peaceful graveyard, and it was really interesting reading the stones and imagining the people’s lives. There was a grave for Edward Wilson, the Antarctic explorer, our local celebrity and my Dad’s personal hero, but not his actual body because it’s buried in Antarctica where he died. And there’s a grave for a man who lived to be 111 years old in the late eighteenth/ early nineteenth century.
My Dad proposed to my Mum in Highgate Cemetery, by Karl Marx’ grave. They’re neither Marxists nor Goths, he said he just wanted to do it in a place that wouldn’t be built on or change.
When we visited Vermont a couple of years ago, we decided to walk around Dellwood Cemetery in Manchester. Which had graves that spanned hundreds of years, and a variety of stones and monuments. My favorite stone, by far, was this one:
Also, my fiancee works in anthropology, and has had to work on cemeteries that were moved due to development. It is both fascinating and heartbreaking.
Aww, that’s a good one 🙂
When we visited Vermont a couple of years ago, we decided to walk around Dellwood Cemetery in Manchester. Which had graves that spanned hundreds of years, and a variety of stones and monuments. My favorite stone, by far, was this one: <img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/964ca0a9fd25d4641953f3b7b95126cb/tumblr_mr753a6akw1qbjb5uo1_500.jpg" height="500" width="333">
Also, my fiancee works in anthropology, and has had to work on cemeteries that were moved due to development. It is both fascinating and heartbreaking.
Oh, this is a lovely article! I spent part of my childhood in cemeteries as my grandfather documented markings for local historical settings. Also, wandering around strange church graveyards is the best part of going to church weddings/baptisms/funerals, etc.
For a really good read about London’s graveyards, Catherine Arnold’s “Necropolis: London and its Dead” is fascinating. http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B007DG939I/ref=cm…
Excellent read, except that the last few chapters get very very detailed on Victorian cemetery politics.
Oh, this is a lovely article! I spent part of my childhood in cemeteries as my grandfather documented markings for local historical settings. Also, wandering around strange church graveyards is the best part of going to church weddings/baptisms/funerals, etc.
For a really good read about London's graveyards, Catherine Arnold's "Necropolis: London and its Dead" is fascinating. http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B007DG939I/ref=cm…
Excellent read, except that the last few chapters get very very detailed on Victorian cemetery politics.
The area I live in is very rural and littered with family cemeteries. I am the granddaughter of a clergyman, and a musician. This translated to me spending A LOT of time in graveyards and cemeteries, playing among the stones and making up stories for their lives. As an adult, I’ve spent a good part of my academic life researching and writing about Appalachian death ritual. It’s a fascinating field, and there’s a rich tradition surrounding it. A lot of older traditions still linger on in the remote hollars, and some of them are even making a comeback as Appalachian youth are trying to take back what we consider to be our culture that’s being leached from us.
When I was in high school and grad school, I used to go to my family cemetery to study when it was nice, because it was quiet and peaceful and I could feed the squirrels when I needed a distraction. Those headstones feel more like friends than inanimate objects at this point.
As a child, my best friend lived on a Church property in our small town. Essentially her backyard was the cemetery and we spent countless days adventuring and exploring the graves. As a minister, her father taught us to be respectful.
I have a strong connection and visceral attachment to cemeteries – something friends think is odd. So it is nice to know I am not alone. I know how I will be spending my next sunny day off. Now, to find a friend to bring with!
Thanks for posting, Lindsey.
As a child, my best friend lived on a Church property in our small town. Essentially her backyard was the cemetery and we spent countless days adventuring and exploring the graves. As a minister, her father taught us to be respectful.
I have a strong connection and visceral attachment to cemeteries – something friends think is odd. So it is nice to know I am not alone. I know how I will be spending my next sunny day off. Now, to find a friend to bring with!
Thanks for posting, Lindsey.
Does anyone here do Find A Grave? It’s one of my mom’s hobbies. She loves wandering around tiny cemeteries, or searching through tall fields to find lone grave sites to upload onto the site. She has minor beef with another hobbyist who takes terrible pictures – stones all covered in leaves or bad light – that can’t be taken down, so Mom always tries to get to new sites first. You never know, some of your ancestors may be on there!
Spooky local folklore is my favorite. We have the Black Angel, a massive blackened bronze angel, hunched over with arms and wings outspread. There are lots of stories about her, but the first I heard was that if you touch her hand at midnight, you’ll slowly turn to black bronze.
Lafayette Cemetery in New Orleans is lovely — a lot of above-ground vaults, which I believe has something to do with water and ground level. My cousin and I spent a lovely afternoon rambling there, and surmised (correctly!) that there must have been a large plague during a particular year, because we kept seeing family vaults where people from multiple generations had died within a few weeks of each other. Sad and beautiful and fascinating.
Lafayette Cemetery in New Orleans is lovely — a lot of above-ground vaults, which I believe has something to do with water and ground level. My cousin and I spent a lovely afternoon rambling there, and surmised (correctly!) that there must have been a large plague during a particular year, because we kept seeing family vaults where people from multiple generations had died within a few weeks of each other. Sad and beautiful and fascinating.