Wandering Through the Dead

Tom and I like to visit cemeteries. Usually when we visit a town on vacation we try to find the oldest cemetery there is and wander through.

Last fall we went to Cincinnati with some friends and that city has the most wonderful cemetery I have ever seen in my lifetime. It was huge, easy to get lost in if we had been alone. These two photos are an example of all the truly amazing statuary that decorate the grounds.

We wander about, looking for the oldest graves and the ones with the most interesting information on them. We've discovered that different parts of the country have different ways with their cemeteries and headstones.

In Kentucky, home to Tom's family, we found that people there are very fond of decorating with multiple fake flower arrangements. But they also put a lot of interesting information on the grave markers, often listing names of children and grandchildren on the back of the stones. That's got to be a genealogist's dream.

It's nearly time in Michigan to tend to my parent's grave, now that the danger of frost is about done. This is a task my mother always took care of, but with her passing it is left to me. I always gave her simple flowers on my birthday, a handful of daffodils - a bunch of tulips, now I'll have to take them to the place she rests, next to my father and side-by-side with my grandparents. No fake flowers there!

It strikes us that there aren't nearly enough cemeteries for the number of people who have lived in the United States to date, but it's too mind-boggling to think about that much. It's just enough to think of graveyards as quiet, peaceful places of eternal rest.

With a few live ones wandering through once in a while.