blue2going

Last night was the final cemetery tour, and it was a grand finale, we toured four different cemeteries! The first was Calvary Cemetery, the largest where we met up as a group. In the center was a ring of memorials to priests and bishops. It also had some cool crypts and statuary. My favorite was an angel clinging to a cross. I have to return and get a photo of that one and some of the others. We found Winston Churchill in this cemetery. He was a young soldier buried in the military section. Nobody fell for our instructor's joke about him being "the real Winston Churchill".

Then we drove to the next door Polish Catholic Cemetery, which also had nice statuary and plenty of interesting markers including a "baby" area. Many of the markers were written in Polish.

Then we drove to the Adas Israel Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery. It was VERY interesting. Many of the markers had little oval ceramic photos set in them. Some of the pictures were scratched, broken or missing but a large percentage of the grave markers had them. There was a line of boulders across the middle of the cemetery. Nearly all of the markers had Hebrew writing on them.

We hiked through the wood to another Jewish Cemetery, Tifereth Israel Cemetery. This one was very small and Bob Dylan's mother was supposed to be buried there. We looked at every marker and didn't find her (yes, we knew to look for "Zimmerman" not Dylan!). The far part of this cemetery also had a "baby" section but it was different than any other baby section we had seen so far. Each grave had a little marker and the gravesite area was outlined with a cement ridge, some were very small outlines! I've GOT to go back and try to get a photo of that section, too.

To return to our cars we had to hike back through the wood and through Adas Israel Cemetery again. Right in the corner, near the road and the fence was Beatrice and Abram Zimmerman--in plain sight! We just hadn't known to look in the first cemetery as our guide paper said they were in Tifereth Israel Cemetery. There were two large baskets of plants and fresh flowers in front of the stone. There were also a whole bunch of little rocks carefully laid on top. We had noticed many of the stones had little rocks or even seashells laid on top of them. Our instructor told us it was in remembrance, a mark of respect. So our class left a little rock on top of Beatrice and Abram's marker.

As we came back through, a caretaker was seasoning a brand new tombstone with water. She said that the boulders down the middle of the cemetery were to divide the old from the new sections.

Here are some photos from Cemetery Tour #4 to Forest Hill. The first is the Congdon family marker. There are a lot of graves around it, including murdered heiress Elizabeth Congdon. The marker was very tall but I had to face a fierce bright sun for the photo so it's hard to see the top.





The second photo is of a weird marker that had no other information but "Dowse" written on it. It looks fairly modern but still very interesting. The other couple of photos I snapped didn't even get developed, they must not have turned out.





Well, the class is done now. But my friends and I are going back to visit some of the cemeteries because they weren't in the class and want to see some of the stuff I've been talking about.

Epitaphs #6 (the final words….)


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Here Lies Jane Smith
Wife of Thomas Smith
Marble Cutter:
This Monument Erected
By Her Husband
As A Tribute
To Her Memory.
Monuments of this style
are 250 Dollars.
Annapolis

Sacred To The Remains of
Jonathan Thompson
A Pious Christian and
Affectionate Husband.
His disconsolate widow
Continues to carry on
His grocery business
At the old stand on
Main Street: Cheapest
and best prices in town.
Harwichport

Effen Nyt
(translates into "Exactly Nothing." Put on stone by disappointed heirs) New Church, Amsterdam, Holland

Arthur C. Homan's epitaph:
Once I wasn't
Then I was
Now I ain't again.
Cleveland, Ohio

On babies graves:
Ope'd my eyes, took a peep;
Didn't like it, went to sleep.

It is so soon that I am done for
I wonder what I was begun for.
Lake Mills Cemetery, Wisconsin

Here lies Ned.
There is nothing more to be said--
Because we like to speak well of the dead.

I came into this world
Without my consent
And left in the same manner.
Chattanooga, Tennessee

In a cemetery in England:
Remember man, as you walk by,
As you are now, so once was I,
As I am now, so shall you be,
Remember this and follow me.

To which someone replied by writing on the tombstone:

To follow you I'll not consent,
Until I know which way you went.

Honey you don't know
What you did for me
Always playing the lottery.
The numbers you picked
Came in to play
Two days after you passed away.
For this a huge monument I do erect
For now a get a yearly check.
How I wish you were alive
For now we are worth 8.5.
Epitaph for Elizabeth Rich, Eufala, Alabama

In Durness Churchyard, Sutherlandshire.
Here doth lye the bodie
Of John Flye, who did die
By a stroke from a sky-rocket
Which hit him on the eye-socket.

Someone who found peas:
Here lies my wife
Here let her lie
Now she has peace
And so do I.
She caught a chill
While picking peas
In the rain
And died.

In Doncaster Churchyard.
Here lies 2 brothers by misfortune serounded,
One dy'd of his wounds, and the other was drownded.

Thomas Stagg's epitaph:
That is all
St. Giles Churchyard, London, England
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