Cemeteries

I've always loved them because they're all about stories. In any cemetery, you've got stories all around you: names, and dates of birth and death (plus places if you're lucky). How much can you figure out about a person if you just know a name and when they were born and when they died? Quite a lot, actually. You can think about their lives; you can "remember" something you don't really know.

Examples:
--in a small, rural town in Oregon, formerly a lumber boomtoom, a woman born there in 1885 died there in 1950. Her name was--I'm not kidding, here--you can't make stuff like this up--Lulu Sophie Detroit. Lulu? Lulu? Not Lucille Sophia--Lulu Sophie! And Detroit! What do you suppose our Lulu did for a living? No husband, no children buried nearby. Just Lulu, everybody's gal.

--in a neglected country burial ground in southern New Hampshire, a woman who died in 1870 is identified as the "consort" of the man buried next to her, who died eight years later, both of them in their 60s when they passed. What's the story there, I have to wonder? Were they living in sin? Why didn't they marry? Was she his housekeeper? He seems to have had several children but no wife--was she their mother? What's with "consort"?

--a man who was born in Boston in 1835 and died there in 1895 only lived to be 60 years old (actually, a pretty good age for that time), but he also lived through the Civil War. If he fought in it, his rank and unit will usually be engraved on his headstone. Was he an officer or an enlisted man? Cavalry or infantry? Are his wife and children buried around him? Yup, there they are. Oh, look--they lost four babies, three of them during the war--in 1862, 1864 and 1865. If he fought, was he away in the war when his children died? What must his wife have gone through? One of the markers is an tiny, empty stone cradle, with a little dent in the pillow where the child's head lay. Not morbid, but so sad, I get a lump in my throat.

I'm hardly ever sad in cemeteries, though. Quite often, I'm laughing. My passion for cemeteries, always lively, really kicked in when Pica introduced me to the granddaddy of them all, Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. Along with a compulsion to let the dead tell us their stories, P. and I have shared some hearty yuks in that enormous, lovely place where there was, and is, always something new to discover. One day we absolutely fell over laughing when we found Curtis Burt buried next to his wife, Bertha, and I said, "Oh, look--there's Curt Burt and Bertha Burt!" Say it yourself, real fast; see if you can not laugh. I dare you. Or maybe you had to be there. I'm so glad I was.

Or the simple, solemn, imposing stone monolith, at least 8 feet tall, that draws you to it all along the little path marked by my favorite Japanese maple. "Must be somebody Important," we said the first time, for there are many Important People buried in Mt. Auburn. This one rates the big rock because he is "BARNABAS BATES FATHER OF CHEAP POSTAGE." with the little period at the end; so droll. When we quit laughing, I took several photos which I later used as postcards.

And Emerson's gravestone in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, in Concord, Mass.: everybody else in Author's Row has tasteful, modest grey stones with their dates and names--Louisa May Alcott, Bronson Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau. And then you get to the end of the Row and off by itself, up higher on the hillside, with its nose in the air, is this enormous uncut, unpolished chunk of pink granite--pink--with just a brass plate that declaims, in enormous yet solemn capitals, "EMERSON." I distinctly remember standing there with Pica, shaking our heads and snorting our disdain: "Well, THERE's Waldo, huh?" "It just figures, doesn't it? I mean, he would, wouldn't he?" "Eugh, it's vulgar." I guess you can tell we're Not fans, enough Not to stand there and sneer at the gravestone Waldo probably had nothing to do with, but was probably carefully selected by his adoring fans. And we were into it enough to get all worked up.

We got worked up in other ways about other Important People. Robert Gould Shaw's memorial sent us on a rampage, reading his published letters, seeing Glory again, studying the memorial on Boston Common that appears behind the closing credits in the film. We wondered at the teddybear cult centered on John Wilkes Booth's brother's grave. Nearby, we commiserated with Senator Charles Sumner, featured speaker at the dedication of Gettysburg Cemetery; he spoke for two hours, but it's Lincoln's words we remember. We were all but hypnotized by a collection of life-sized books, worked in bronze, scattered around atop the tomb of a 19th-century school superintendent who must have been quite a guy, in his day.

Occasionally, we were into it enough to make complete fools of ourselves, as for instance the time we blundered into a tomb whose gate stood invitingly open, only to blunder right back out again because although there was nobody (alive) inside, there were gravediggers' implements scattered around, and one of the crypts gaped at us; it was being prepared for imminent occupancy.

And then there was the very early morning when Pica was birding, I lumbering along behind her, dutifully squinting wherever she pointed but seeing not much more than rustling leaves. We trudged up the road to the entirely authentic Gothic Revival funeral chapel swathed in mist, with its tall grey stone towers disappearing into the trees, total D-Minor Fugue atmosphere. As we arrived, so did a hearse. The driver got out and opened the back. Like morons, we both wondered What could be in there? and scampered right over to have a look. What-was-in-there: a plain--very plain--cardboard box, with a loose lid just set on there, about the size of a refrigera . . . oh. Yikes. We spun on our heels and were outta there, pronto, having fetched up against more reality than we'd bargained for.

And then, of course, there was the time we were standing by the pond, revering Isabel Stewart Gardner's handsome green marble tomb with the tasteful Art Nouveau detail. Suddenly, some machinery (pond filter? cryptic airconditioning?) started up right behind us, whooshVROOM! Scared us so bad, we shrieked aloud, nearly stepped on a goose in her nest, and burst out laughing, silly geese that we were.

So that's how I feel in cemeteries--alive, and listening. And laughing.

Comments

[Pica]

Barnabas BATES is the father of cheap postage, dear Doc; how could you forget?

Waldo's pink granite, on the other hand, I'd forgotten about, so am happy to be reminded.

[fredf]

Where's Waldo. Don't you just knock yourself out some time? You goonies.

[wendy]

The story of the tiny grave markers reminded me of this - when we were visiting the little family graveyard next to my grandparents house one time I asked what the little stones off to the edge of the graveyard were for - my uncle told me they were markers for my paternal grandparents children who had died of an infuenza outbreak. The story finally came out - my father's parents had lost three children at this time - then they started over and had four more - my father and his siblings. By the time I found this out, both my grandparents were dead. They just never talked about it and I often wondered how they had coped and carried on.

[Coup de Vent]

Cemeteries are very provocative story books, aren't they, but with most of the pages missing! I also wonder what the story was behind a configuration of family deaths and names. And the nameless graves..... Enjoyed the post.

[Trey]

I too find cemeteries places of entertainment. I've very relieved to know I'm not the only one.