Our village is so small we only have a couple hundred residents, a bust stop, a post office, playground, fire hall and...cemetery. The cemetery is over 150 years old and has veterans from at least the War of 1812 (I think a veteran from 1776 too) and a lot of Civil War veterans (including a captain who died around 1862...but whose wife, buried next to him, died around 1918!). We have the title abstract on our house which is the same age as the cemetery, and we can trace the former owners around the headstones.
The cemetery is so beautiful. It is only a block from our house and surrounded by a brook and forest preserve with paths! It is all a bit pleasantly rough. Nobody ever visits either cemetery or nature preserve, which means they are clean and have no trash.
We got home and since it has been warm...I had a deer tick on my leg OH GOSH! Nabbed him before he bit me....
Anyway, the saddest stones are just behind Penny, a row of several stones from one family. The parents died many years after the kids. All of the kids died in one week in January in the 1800s....imagine that, some flu comes along, and all your kids your die in one week?????
We are so lucky these days - I couldn't take losing all my children in one week.
ReplyDeleteI know...get pricked by an old nail or catch a cold and you could be DEAD right away...
ReplyDeleteSo good to see the living hanging out with the dead. I also love cemeteries, and need to find a favorite around here. Miss the peaceful introspection that happens when you read those old tombstones.
ReplyDeletethose old cemeteries are very cool!
ReplyDeleteCemeteries show us the history of the people in the area but they also make us think of lots of questions about those folks. We are fortunate to have some really historic cemeteries near by, they are so peaceful to visit.
ReplyDeleteYou pictures show two White Bronze Headstones you can learn more about them at http://saveagrave.net/white-bronze-headstones
ReplyDeleteI love old cemeteries. So much interesting history there... and so much heartache.
ReplyDeleteI once discovered a pair of very simple graves which belonged to a father and son - both of whom perished with the Titanic. It was the words "lost at sea" on one of the graves and the date on both which clued me in. This was in Winchendon, Massachusetts.
What a lovely cemetery, and so much history! I think it is amazing that your house dates back to the same age as the graveyard.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful setting, but geez, how awful for that family!
ReplyDeleteI love old cemeteries. We had one in our last small town and I somehow timed it to be there when all of the Confederate flags were on the markers for the civil war soldiers... which is a jarring sight for this northerner/Pacific Northwesterner.