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Why I Love Old Cemeteries
By Sherry Hightower
Finding old and lost cemeteries is one of my favorite hobbies. I live to discover them. "Who cares!", you say. How about the descendents of those long buried and mourned, but not forgotten? How about someone like me who cherishes the history and appreciates that a life was lived, enjoyed or despaired, and then passed away from this earth? Only a few times have I been blessed to find a lost cemetery in the woods, the trees grown thick around the fence line and the headstones standing like silent soldiers, protecting the final resting place of the person beneath it. I touch the headstones and close my eyes, trying to imagine a family standing there, the tears for their loved one falling down soft cheeks and being wiped away with a gloved hand or a calloused hand. Or maybe it is an old immigrant who no one knew when they were born so all that is on the headstone is a name, a death date and their age. Touching that headstone for me is a moment where the boundaries of time can fall away. I am touching right then, the stone, which may have been chiseled in the 1800's or the 1700's. I am touching the stone that other hands set in the ground. Am I brushing the space where tears fell or a small child kissed? Am I standing where a mother kneeled in prayer or a father fought back his emotions? Our old cemeteries are our history as much as any building or battlefield. Unfortunately we are losing these precious pockets of history to highways, shopping malls and housing additions. Please visit your ancestor's graves and keep their final resting place an active memory. Don't become the person who, when one day your child or grandchild asks, "Where is great-grandmother buried?" and you must answer, "I don't remember."
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Contributor's Note
I have been researching family history since 1982 and visiting cemeteries long before that. If you are a volunteer photographer or a genealogist, why not submit your reviews of the cemteries you have visited? You will be helping others like yourself.
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Cemetery & Funeral Home Reviews
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Approaching a lost cemetery in the over grown woods
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The copyright for this content entitled "Why I Love Old Cemeteries" has been specified by the contributor as:
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
Details 
This content may be copied and distributed (but not modified), as long as a) it's for non-commercial use and b) the original author is acknowledged with a link back to the content page.
If you use this content according to the license specified, you must link to the following URL:
http://sherryh.qondio.com/
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