Category: Grave Goods

Surprises on Clean-Up Day

Our cemetery clean up on September 29 was fantastic; it was the first time when I was really able to step back and see a dramatic change on the property. We were so fortunate to have so many wonderful people and groups there, and also to have the assistance of the city Parks Department. When we heard ahead of time that there was going to be a grounds crew there I got pretty excited. When I saw these men at work I was beyond thrilled. They attacked the place with chainsaws, machetes, and mowers and raised the tree canopy by several feet, making a tremendous difference.

Page Jackson is full of beautiful old oak trees that spread, nearly touching the ground in some places. They are lovely to look at but do tend to cause some problems for us here in Florida, especially since we’re in the middle of hurricane season. Heavy limbs can fall and crush or topple gravestones, and since so many in the cemetery are handmade repairing them is costly IF it can be done at all. The crew thinned the trees a bit, trimming the lower limbs, and for the first time since I’ve been working there we had a clear line of sight to the back of the cemetery. We’re hoping that this will help with the crime that takes place out there and also help the police when they drive through. The very back still has a large amount of underbrush and trees that need to be removed, but this was progress.

The volunteers worked on headstone recording, cleaning, and repair, and we finished a large front area, leaving crypts and headstones gleaming in the sunshine. People tended to work in pairs and got to know each other, which was really nice to see.

At the end of the day I went to ask Robert from the city if he was about ready to call it quits. He was. But he had something to show me.

In the back section there had been what looked like a small island of trees and thicket, and the grounds crew had gone in with machetes flying. In the process of clearing the land they found five graves there dating back to the 1950’s. More than that, three of them were covered with plastic grave covers.

If you’ve never seen one (I had not) they’re definitely an oddity. These were a faded peach color and moved easily when you pressed down on them, which I did several times because I could not believe what I was looking at. I did a Google search and got all kinds of interesting things, but nothing like this. I’m wondering if it was just a trendy and inexpensive funeral item in the 50’s. Apparently it scared the crew half to death when they pressed on it and it briefly caved in before bouncing back into shape with a thump! Understandable. To date they are the only ones we’ve seen out there or in any of the surrounding cemeteries. We plan to get the funeral records just to see if there’s any info on them that could tell us anything about them or their cost. I’d love to know where they were manufactured. If you’ve seen any of them please drop me a line and give me cemetery info.

As I stood there marveling at them we found out that another volunteer was cleaning a headstone and found needles. We walked across the cemetery to her and sure enough, there were two capped syringes at the base of a grave where they had been hidden by some leaves. The police were called and came out to take photos and write a report. Apparently people use them and then bury them by a headstone that they feel they can recognize so they can go and use them again later. I’d never heard of anything like that and it gave me a shiver. I was just happy that our volunteer was safe and now we know for next time to encourage everyone to use gloves if they’re cleaning headstones. I know that people have rampant sex in this cemetery, but this was really the first time I’d seen evidence of drug use as well.

After everyone had started packing up I walked through the section we had worked in and noticed that now that they were clean, we could see that some of the crypts had been painted with what looked like a lime wash. I had never been able to see it before, but the D-2 solution from FPAN had cleared away so much grime that the brush strokes were now visible.

The final surprise was at the very front of the cemetery when volunteers found a walkway leading from the road into a family plot that had at one time been cordoned off with chain link and concrete posts. The posts were still standing, but the chain was gone. Very close by there was one headstone with 9 names on it and it looked like they may be the ones buried in that plot. Putting in a walkway would not be an easy project, and it appears to be the only plot that has one. I looked at Emily and said, “Let’s get a shovel,” meaning, let’s pull back some of the grass and reveal more of it so we can figure out where it led to and if it was made of any specific material, like brick.

Nearby, Robert raised his eyebrows in surprise. I think he thought I was going to dig somebody up for a minute there.

We left the walkway for next month, when I hope to wear knee pads and just pull the grass up by hand to reveal all of it.

Before I left I got a video of the plastic grave toppers, still amazed by them, and sent it to Jennifer, who did a ton of work that day (and on many days since then) with her son, Austin. She’d never seen them either. I can’t wait for the next visit to get some more answers. So far, Page Jackson Cemetery only raises more questions. A very sincere thank you to everyone who came out, and to Smoothie King in Lake Mary for their kind donation. Also, thank you to Pamela who does genealogy work for us from afar, your research is making a tremendous difference.

I just got back from a 2 week trip to Tampa for job training, and I was able to visit some stunning cemeteries during my free time. More on that later.

 

 

Hollywood and Lincoln Cemeteries, Volusia County

Sometimes when I’m running around these places I look up at the beautiful blue sky and the fluffy while clouds and think to myself, you know, I’d really like to see something different for a change.

I miss cooler temperatures and think nostalgically of Virginia in the fall, when I would go outside early in the mornings to feel the chill of the air on my cheeks and have the horses breathe on my hands. Or Charleston in the spring, and the marshy, salty smell of the air and the cooler nights. I think I’m just over the heat and that blue sky constantly glaring down at me.

This day was no different. The sky was brilliantly blue, the clouds were high and white and didn’t seem likely to drop any rain. There wasn’t a breath of wind anywhere in the cemetery when I got out to look around. Oh my goodness, it was hot. After ten seconds I wondered why I’d put on makeup that day.

Hollywood Cemetery is in Orange City, not a place where I’ve spent a significant amount of time, but when I’d pulled up cemeteries there I saw a few that I’d never heard of and decided to go take a look. It wasn’t a long drive, and I needed to get out of the house and start seeing what it was like to feel freedom again. The cemetery entrance is very beautiful, with a wide avenue of palm trees and an attractive gate. I drove to the back and got out of the car at the oldest section.

When I got out the first stone that I saw was one with a small floating angel on it, a motif that I’ve seen one other time, and is actually one of my favorites. Instead of looking imposing and stern, these little angels are small, childlike, delicate, and done in profile so you can see the small wings stretching out behind. I think they’re magical. As I walked I noticed that there were a lot of large, expensive newer monuments here as well.

One of them was for a family, mom, dad, and two older kids, and it was extraordinary, made of black granite in a very modern style, and the kids on either side had etched portraits and also their signatures. Sadly, their children had passed on before them.

Nearby was a small cremation garden, with tiny plots and small plaques for each person. Most of the plots had vases of flowers, and it was a bright, pretty spot to look at. I continued down that aisle and saw an area fenced off with black iron and I knew before I got there that it was Babyland. It was small and completely tidy, filled with grave sites that had small, creative headstones. There were teddy bears and writing that looked like crayon, like a child’s. I saw angels and dollies. I stopped and leaned on the fence for a time, reading what I could from where I was, but I didn’t go inside the enclosure. I will say that this was the nicest baby section I’d ever seen. A crow was sitting on the fence, and he cawed at me a few times, as though encouraging me to step inside.

The whole time I was in the cemetery there was an elderly man at the very front, standing in the first row. Because he had on a white shirt and had white hair and was so immobile I had actually mistaken him for a statue when I drove in. He was standing with his hands behind his back and staring forward at one of the newer graves, not moving. I can seem to feel when people are praying or talking to their loved ones, so I assumed that’s what he was doing and parked well away from him for that reason. He left just before I did, so he was there quite awhile in that same pose.

As I was walking back to the car I saw it, beckoning to me.

The back fence made of chain link, separating this cemetery from the other one on my list, Lincoln. Lincoln was the African-American cemetery and was the one I had really wanted to see, and it was right there, I recognized it from the photos online. I looked up and down the fence- no gate. I looked on the other perimeter, but there was no gate there either. I eyed the fence and thought, I can totally climb over that. And that part was true, it wasn’t tall at all. However, it wasn’t like hopping a cattle gate where you have room for your foot to turn on the rungs. Nope. At the top I had no choice but to sit to get my foot out of one side and put a foot in the other side, and while I was doing this I caught a barb from the top of the fence on my rear end, through my shorts, and shredded my hindquarters and the back of one thigh. The fence, of course, was fine.

When I got down the first thing I did was check for blood, and thankfully, there wasn’t any that I could see or feel running down my leg. It was a nasty scratch though and quite painful. I wondered how I was going to get back over that thing and decided to worry about it later as I limped off into the headstones.

Lincoln Cemetery is fascinating, with lots of handmade tributes and markers, including a whole little arbor built over the top of a single grave. There are also a lot of marked graves here with no names, so it was interesting to look around and wonder about them. My favorite grave was near the fence, covered with creeping jasmine and made of concrete. The name and dates were long gone, but it was so small and delicate I felt like it belonged to a child. A small angel in a blue gown had been laid at the base of it. It was very beautiful. Next to it was a piece of broken marble with an enamel cook pot holding it up, and the pot was planted with flowers that had died, but weeds were thriving in it. It was another person’s grave.

Lincoln is in use and maintained, and they’ve done a good job of protecting it, especially with all of the handmade markers. It’s obvious that people come here.

I loved this little bit of history…in 1870 the Wisconsin Land Company donated the ten acres of land to be used as a cemetery, and then it was segregated, with half for whites (Hollywood) and half for African-Americans (Lincoln). Burials began in 1876, so they go way back, though I didn’t see anything that old. Hollywood was actually Holly Wood, because of the holly trees on the property, but it was changed to just Hollywood through the years.

At the side of the cemetery I found a spot by the hearse road where I could go over the fence where the barbs had been bent down a bit more. Did I make it? NO. This time I got stuck on a hidden piece of fence on the other side and hung there limply, my shorts stuck on the wire, wondering what I should do as my legs dangled a couple of inches from the ground. Finally I dug in my heels and managed to unhook myself. I dropped down. The fence was fine, thank God. I would have been horrified otherwise.

I drove to Publix to check for damage in their bathrooms. Just a few big scratches. No tetanus shot needed on this trip.

Buying Funeral Antiques

 

I was fortunate enough to go to an Oddities Market recently here in Orlando. Well, maybe not fortunate. It was about 98 degrees that day, the heavy cloud cover made it feel like a greenhouse, and most of the booths were outside when the event had been advertised as being inside of a brewery. Lies. It was so packed we could barely move, and we managed to snake past the couple of indoor booths at a pace that made me frantic since I like to keep things moving. Gus is still training his service dog, and the dog proved to be practically bombproof in that insane crowd, stepping carefully and licking a leg or a knee gently when one was close by.

I collect embalming bottles. I love them, but they didn’t have any at the market. My first one was for Rochester Germicide and is printed upside down because it was used for gravity embalming. After that I got several from the 1930’s with the original labels, including instructions, which can be horrifying on the cavity embalming chemicals. The first time I read the back of one I felt oddly lightheaded, but it passed and I ended up with the collection anyway. It’s slow to grow, since I don’t seek out new ones every payday, but if I’m in an antique mall and I see one, I’ll usually buy it. I try not to pay more than 25 per bottle, but would be willing to break this rule if it included one from Dodge, Pierce, or Frigid, since they are some of the more widely known companies that provide chemicals and are still in operation.

 

I also like caskets and coffins, but do not live in a place where collecting them would be realistic, and I also don’t want to terrify any future acquaintance that may come to my house. I heard recently that there were 2 in an antique shop in Mt. Dora and I went to have a look. Mt. Dora is an old city, very small, that dates back to 1880. I love any excuse to go there. Sure enough, in one of the antique malls I rounded a corner and saw two coffins laid on a large dining table. One was a toe-pincher from the Civil War era that had once held a glass viewing plate so you could look down on the deceased after they were tucked away inside. The other was for an infant, also in the traditional shape, and made of dark wood. That one didn’t interest me much. For one thing it lacked any hardware or way to close it unless it was nailed shut, which is fine but not interesting. Also there was the possibility that it was only a salesman’s sample. I focused on the big one and got out a flashlight.

The hardware was beautiful and made of some sort of darkened metal, with small handles that had been screwed onto the sides and painted black, which could have been a later addition. The inside (because I put my head into it through the opening where the glass used to be) was lined in a rough unbleached cotton that was padded with straw. The lining was heavily stained and damaged, but it was a fantastic thing to get to see. Price: $2,400. The price for the infant coffin: $475.

 

A couple of miles away sat a larger antique mall that had a wicker child’s casket last year, and I went to see if it was still there. It was. Price: $275. Of the three this would have been the one I wanted. It was lined with leather and very delicate, but it was also a subtle design that didn’t scream COFFIN. It was small enough for me to carry with both arms, and weighed very little. I still want this one and felt that it was better priced than the others. Plus, and I don’t know how to say this exactly, but this one gave me a feeling that I can’t explain. I still feel like I may buy it one day.

At the same mall I found 4 embalming bottles and my collection grew when the shop owner told me I could have all 4 for $75, that yes, I could in fact pet the stuffed skunk at the front of the shop, and that she also had something else that I might like to see.

From behind the desk she hefted a large picture in an ornate frame of a deceased child in her white casket, surrounded by funeral flowers. It was almost hard to make out the body because the flowers overpowered the scene, which had been taken in a home parlor judging by the furniture in the room. At the bottom of the frame were details of her birth and death written in pencil surrounded by pressed flowers and ferns. I looked at it for a moment in stunned silence. It was very large. My mind was racing. I had 2 mostly paid off credit cards in my purse- hang the fact that I’d just spent a year and a half paying them off.

“The other shop owners don’t want me to hang it because they feel it will upset someone, so it stays with me for now,” she said, looking wistfully at the photo.

“Was there a price you were thinking of asking for it?” I asked. She never got to tell me, because Shawn started yelling that she had just told me she was keeping it. I left disappointed. I would have liked to have known her price range, partly so I could go back ALONE and ask about it, and partly to do some research. If she had quoted me anything up to $500 I would have bought it that day, even if I was an idiot for doing so. The flowers, along with the handwritten details made it a one of a kind piece. Rather than argue with Shawn publicly I gave her my card and asked if she’d let me know if she decided to sell it.

At the oddities market I saw two things that interested me, but they were sold. One was a Victorian hair wreath, which I look at with a mix of fascination and horror since they’re kind of a ghastly art form. Still, the fact that I’ve only seen 2 my whole life makes them rare (to me) and worth looking into. The price tag was gone, the shop owner was busy talking to someone, and I had sweat running down my sides. The next item was a framed set of five black and white photos of a young boy’s funeral. Four of him in the casket from different angles, and one of his headstone. It was sad of course, but I tend to like collections like that when they include the headstone or photos of the actual funeral. (Though I will admit to crying over a set once.) The price tag had also been removed. One thing that was interesting about these photos was the fact that the boy had been covered with a white blanket that draped over the sides of the casket making him literally look like he was sleeping, which I’m sure was done to make the casket look less shocking for the family. The photos were tastefully done and I tend to like a lot of post-mortem funeral photography.  I don’t like the ones that are little more frightening and include blood or gore of any kind. I still remember the first one I saw like that and I wish to all that is holy that I could un-see that photo.

There are a few things that I refuse to buy when I see them, and that is casket hardware, casket nameplates, and any kind of marker, metal or otherwise. If you see a funeral home marker for sale online or in a store, report it. In a store it gets reported to the Sheriff. If it’s online, report the posting. They are not to be sold. Casket hardware is generally one of the easiest things for grave robbers to loot, and the chance that the items were stolen makes me very wary of any kind of purchase like that.

Compare prices and do your research before you buy, and enjoy! If you have an interesting collection tell me about it! Also, Shawn and I did break up so I will post when I can because I am moving and also taking a class. No, I didn’t break up with him because of the photo. And yes, I’m fine.

Holt Cemetery, New Orleans

 

We skipped off to New Orleans for the week after Christmas, and came home the day before New Years Eve. Skipped may not be the right term, more like wordlessly plodded. We had to get up at 4 a.m. to catch our flight, but the good thing is that we were in the city by 8 a.m., tightly clutching hot beverages and in shock from the cold. I wore Shawn’s heaviest coat the whole time and looked crazy in many of the photos, but I was mostly warm.

Holt was number one on my list of cemeteries to visit. It’s not the most talked about cemetery, it’s not fancy, or crumbling, or full of interesting vaults and crypts. Holt is it’s own kind of iconic New Orleans burial ground.

For one thing, all burials are in ground unlike the other city cemeteries. I know people say that it can’t be done because of the water table but they are successfully burying people here and the caskets are staying in the ground, so I think a lot of those suppositions are rooted in myths and urban legends. The vaults that you find in the other cemeteries are efficient at what they do. People decompose rapidly and with little fuss, and a year later it’s safe to place another body in the vault. However, coping burials are also popular there, where the plot is framed in concrete and the burial vault covered in gravel and dirt. When we went to Lafayette Cemetery it had rained all day and one of the ledger stones was broken in one of the family plots. I leaned over the fence for a better look and saw that the entire grave was filled with water, which horrified me for some reason. I’m not sure why Holt is able to do what it does if it’s true about the water table being so high and unforgiving.

Holt Cemetery is considered a potter’s field and a burial space for the indigent who can’t afford other cemetery sites. It was established in 1879 according to the Save Our Cemeteries website, and has been in operation ever since. It is still an active site. The morning that we arrived we pulled into the cemetery gates around 10 a.m. and saw workmen at the back digging graves…by hand. In all of the visits I’ve made to cemeteries in the South, that was something I’d never seen before, but I honestly don’t believe that they could get the equipment in there in order to do it any other way. The place is packed full, and you can barely walk through without knowing that you are stepping on someone’s grave.

At the back of the cemetery is a brick retort that looks like it was from an old crematorium. It has been locked shut, but the fact that it’s there remains a mystery. I’m not sure why it’s there or if there was a building around it at one time. It has graves crowded up against it on all sides.

Most of the headstones and markers here are all handmade. We saw raw wood, painted wood, plastic, a road sign with a person’s name painted on it, PVC piping, bricks, an oven rack, concrete, all kinds of fencing, and multiple statues- everything from a bunny to the Virgin Mary. Lots of flowers were on the graves in blue, black, and purple. A lot of stuffed animals were on graves, and even framed photos. It’s a bright space, but in the morning after a recent rain in the cold weather it was bleak and sad, with standing water at the curves of the road and in the drainage ditch that runs through the space, and squelching mud everywhere you stepped.

This cemetery was in the news last year because a young woman in New Orleans was going out after heavy rain and harvesting bones that she saw on the graves, and then posting them in a not so discreet fashion online. She was eventually apprehended, but was convinced that what she was doing wasn’t grave robbing since the bones were right there on top of the soil, and she wasn’t charging people for anything but the shipping when they wanted the items. (She was doing a brisk trade, as well.) Some people collect bones just because, and some people purchase or steal them for spell work and magic. Either way, it’s a good idea not to touch bones in cemeteries unless you’re certain it’s from an animal. I’ve picked up animal bones on cemetery walks and have a deer vertebrae in my car (I didn’t know where else to put it), but human bones…no. It’s safe to say that when you visit this city you will see bones in a cemetery. Just leave them there, they do tend to wash up sometimes. On our visit we saw bones at 3 different sites, but not at Holt Cemetery. More on that later.

Please visit this one if you go to New Orleans. It’s much more humble than the others, but certainly filled with love  and sweet tributes everywhere you look.

Moultrie Church in St. Augustine, Florida

This little church is stunning and was built in 1877, when the graveyard (called Wildwood Cemetery) was already existing. It was originally a Southern Methodist church, then non-denominational, and then finally Catholic, with the first Catholic mass held in 2014. The church has been transformed through the years as the church population declined, until now when it’s essentially opened for special services and occasions.

A couple began taking care of the church and grounds in 2004. Mr. and Mrs. Tindell started caretaking for the cemetery, recovering buried stones and maintaining the grounds before finally gaining permission to care for the building as well. The grounds are impeccable, with some of the cleanest and most pristine old headstones I’ve seen in this area. Some of the unusual features are toward the back of the cemetery, so be sure to walk all the way through and head toward the woods.

Propped against a tree you’ll find a wooden marker. Sadly, it can no longer be read, and most wooden markers tend to fall over due to the moisture at the base rotting the wood, but I still love seeing them! There is also a handmade headstone from 1960 for a C.R. Cooper that looks like molded concrete with turquoise paint layered over the scratched letters. The font for the name is lovely and has a little flourish on the C. It looks like it was written in the wet concrete with someone’s finger and I love the idea of that.

 

In the far corner is an odd section that I approached, thinking at first that it was a small area for families to sprinkle cremains, but that isn’t what’s going on there. It was actually a family plot for a husband and wife, and aside from the angels and trinkets, there were also lots and lots of oyster shells. I’ve seen so many conch shells in the African American cemeteries that I frequent, but the oyster shells were new to me. If anyone knows the significance, please reach out to me here on the blog. I’d appreciate it! I know seashells can be used as a way to mark a visit to a loved one’s grave, similar to the Jewish tradition of leaving a pebble. The conch usually signifies the trip homeward for the person buried there, a way of being carried back across the sea. I’ve even heard that the conch, if whole, can hold the soul of that person. I never touch them when I visit cemeteries, but I do take a peek to see if they were sourced (they’ll have a small hole in the shell) or collected naturally.

Definitely go to this cemetery if you get the chance, it’s lovely.

Also take a minute to look into your local chapter for the Association of Gravestone Studies. I joined the Florida chapter about a month ago and got my first newsletter the other day- it had so much information in it- I loved going through all of the articles. If you’re interested in joining you can find them on Facebook. Their annual conference is in June so mark your calendars!

Meanwhile, I’m sitting here in the dark watching Britcoms because it’s the first day of daylight savings time and Shawn is also out of town. The house seems very quiet. Grace and I are heading to Tampa this week to revisit some favorite cemeteries and I’m sure hilarity will ensue. We have a big list to get through so I’m just hoping for the best, though I was hoping for cooler weather. Florida decided to spoil us for a week with evening temps in the 50’s and then ruin it all over again the next week with our usual heat. Oh well. There’s a lot to be grateful for right now, including the fact that my cat now has her paw in my water glass.

Happy daylight savings, everyone!

 

 

Marti Colon Cemetery in Tampa, Florida

I took a much needed day off to be alone and just wander, and what better place to do that than in Tampa’s cemeteries. I had several on my list that I had missed on my last trip, and decided to head in that direction. I needed to just stop thinking for a day.

My favorite of the several that I visited was not the most showy or ostentatious, quite the opposite, in fact. I had passed it back in February and was unable to see the name on the sign, I just saw the large, white mausoleum with Jesus on the front of it and knew I had to go back. It took me a bit of researching to figure out which one it might potentially be, but I found it, and went there after visiting Myrtle Hill (amazing), and Orange Hill (interesting). Marti Colon is not terribly large, and has a checkered past involving the city, the parks department, dumping of raw sewage, and a LOT of bodies that were not moved during the Columbus Road expansion and then a few more bodies that were moved improperly- stacked in graves one on top of the other. That’s a no-no unless the plot was sold to the family for that kind of burial. But when you go there, you’d never know it’s had problems. It was established in 1895.

The one family mausoleum at the front is huge and I’ve never seen one like it. First, the doorway was tiled in bright colors and there were no doors. Over the door was a very large plaster figure of Jesus with the stigmata on his hands. (I absolutely loved it, of course. It was amazing and only slightly ghoulish.) The windows were some kind of blurred glass that you could still see out of, and inside the ceilings were surprisingly high. There were niches in the walls for flowers and tributes, and the marble for the name plates was an unusual pink color. The niches had been painted a robin’s egg blue and were discolored from candles being burned in them over the years. One side held flowers and the other a dead plant. An old broom was in the corner. The windows on either side of the doorway actually had crank handles so that they could be opened. It was really remarkable and didn’t exactly remind me of a mausoleum, more of a house. Like you could put in doors and a couch and be good to go. I’m thinking the family must like that. The mausoleum was almost full.

The thing about the mausoleum that really struck me though, besides all that I’ve mentioned, is that the light inside was extraordinary. It was perfect for photos; I’m not sure if it was the blurred glass or the high ceilings, or the reflective tile floor, but it was really beautiful. I stayed in there a long time, just looking. Finally, I walked out to see the larger mausoleum. It was flat and wide, dark on the inside, and I felt a need to duck going in. It had skylights throughout the central section that gave it an eerie feeling with lots of shadows. I can’t say I’d want to be in this one on a rainy day. Tributes were scattered all over the floor and at the end of the main section was a broken stained glass window that had been of some religious figure. My guess would be Mary. One hand was left in the glass, perfectly detailed and holding a flower stem, while the rest of the figure was gone. It needed a good mop, broom, and bucket of paint. It was just dirty and sad, in the way of homes that get run down because the occupants can’t afford to replace things as they get old or break. I flipped the light switch praying for the lights to come on, but the electricity had probably been turned off for years. I walked out to look at the gravestones.

Like the other cemeteries in Tampa this one was full of photos on the graves. It’s one of my favorite things about visiting this area. The Spanish, Cuban, and Italian immigrants loved their fancy graves and rituals. The photos mean that you will usually see at least one post-mortem while visiting the cemeteries, and I saw what I thought was one in the back, but Maryanne said she didn’t think so. Hard to tell on that one. They always startle me a bit, but it’s either something you love or something that makes you shiver. I usually like them.

 

I was following a path through the graves and looking down at one grave at a time as I walked when I saw a small handmade marker. Baby Sanchez June 16, 1961, Love Mom and Dad. The phrase had been scratched into the concrete with a nail or sharp tool, and I got down on the ground to take a closer look. I thought about the parents that must have made that and what they felt like at the time, and then I saw another one. And another. There was an entire row of the handmade markers, all in the same hand, and all identical otherwise aside from the dates and names. The parents had not made them. One person in the community had made them for the families that lost children for several years. And then I took a closer look around and saw that I was standing in Babyland.

I don’t willingly enter these sections anymore, and I felt something akin to fear grip my heart when I realized where I was, so I looked at one other grave that caught my eye and then went back to the pathway to view the section from there. The babies were under large, shady trees and the graves were so tiny, and some quite ornate. In the back I saw one that had small toy truck left on it, which amazed me as it looked fairly old. I made my way back to the front of the cemetery.

This is one that I’ll be going back to in the next month, and bringing a few cemetery-loving friends for an outing. I’m also interested in viewing the records on some of the families there. It’s a little run-down, but I think that’s exactly what I liked about it. I doubt it has many visitors since I saw little evidence of recent visits like fresh or new flowers and cards. Instead, like the cemetery itself, everything was worn, slightly faded, and had seen better, brighter days. But to me, that made it glorious.

 

Flowers at Page Jackson Cemetery

Grace, Gus, and I go out to Page Jackson together and also tend to monitor the site on our own. During this summer we spent some time researching more about the cemetery and people, and we also made plans for what we would like to do out there this winter when the heat and humidity isn’t sapping our energy so much. There’s still one gravestone I’ve yet to find from one of the first marked burials, and it’s bugging me. On the first cool day this winter that’s where I’ll be.

I went out recently with Shawn in the evening. We’ve been looking for a house in the area and many of our weekends are spent in Sanford checking out real estate. One day we were coming home later than usual; it was already getting dark. 

“Pull into the cemetery, would you?” I said as we came near, and he obliged.

My goal was to see how many cars were parked back there. We drove down the paved road until the asphalt gave way to the dirt road that leads into Page Jackson. There thankfully wasn’t anyone else there, and we could still see pretty well so we stopped and got out. 

Page Jackson doesn’t have a single flower blooming on its 11 acres. Not. One. It’s a combination of pine woods and oak trees and it looks like hell. Two grave sites are regularly visited out of 1,090, and their people leave silk flowers on them and not fresh. It’s always been like that. There is nothing here that smells except for the dirt road when it rains. That’s it. 

When I got out of the car that night there was an overwhelming smell of flowers. The smell wasn’t familiar, but it seemed like an old fashioned smell. It was heady and sweet and it felt like we were in a cloud of it. I turned to Shawn and asked if he could smell it. He could not.

I said, “The flowers. You don’t smell them?” He didn’t. He mentioned that something must be blooming but there wasn’t anything nearby or overhead. Just the cathedral of oak branches and Spanish moss. We left shortly thereafter because a couple of cars started pulling into the cemetery. One went to the house on the property, and one drove back to Shiloh cemetery.

I think it was during the same month when Gus and I went out after 11 pm to drive through and see if there were a lot of people there. That night there was not a single car, and we rolled the windows down. The crickets and frogs were loud, and I wondered if the smell would be there again but it wasn’t. 

Another night I drove through near dusk and the smell was there again, in the front section which is the oldest and covers about an acre. No matter where I went, the smell was there. It was just as strong. 

This week Grace stayed at Gus’s to pet sit and hang out in Sanford for a week, just to relax and get out of Orlando. She told me she was thinking of driving through the cemetery at night just to see what was going on out there. I told her to message me when she got back. 

A little after ten I got a frantic message saying that when she pulled past the sign to the cemetery and hit the dirt road the whole car filled with the smell of lilacs and her dog, Sherman, cowered in the seat and started growling. She stopped the car, backed up, and left immediately. She also said the smell had been overwhelmingly strong and that before she backed up she saw lights in the trees. 

“What, like flashlights?” I asked.

She shook her head no.

“Car lights, then? Headlights, maybe from someone driving through from Shiloh?”

She shook her head again. “No. It looked more like small lights, almost as if someone were holding a candle about waist high.”

Grace and I went out the next morning to look for lights. There weren’t any- no one puts grave lights out here and when you see them in the dark they tend to have a tell-tale blueish cast, and they’re close to the ground. There are 2 tiki torches on one of the maintained graves, but we looked at them and they’d never been lit. Plus, if someone held a candle in the dark you’d see a reflection of the light on their face. And grave lights don’t move. Also, we don’t have lightning bugs in this part of Florida.

We found out that Gus had the same experience one night with the smell, but not with the lights. I think it’s interesting that all of us have had the same experience and we can’t find the cause. People say the cemetery is haunted but I’d prefer to look for something in the here and now before I believe this is some ghostly activity. The place has been investigated but I never heard anyone mention the smell. Also, the smell seems to only be in the front acre. It’s not farther back in the cemetery and not in Shiloh.

Aside from that, I believe any haunting in this cemetery comes from people being in there at night with flashlights and not from ghosts, but that’s my opinion. This cemetery has a lot of activity from the human element, and while I’m certainly curious, I don’t particularly care as long as there’s no damage or more trash for us to pick up. The cemetery has been vandalized in the past and we saw the polaroids in the local museum. It was horrifying. I think it’s also worth mentioning that every other time I’ve encountered a smell in a cemetery it’s clearly been from some kind of decay and has been gag-inducing and awful.

Has anyone had a similar incident happen to them at a cemetery? I’d like to hear about it.

Children’s Burials

Some of you might wince at this and stop reading, if you even got this far, and I get it. I don’t have children but like a lot of women I still turn into a lioness when I see or hear of them being mistreated, and I feel so much sadness for anyone who loses a child. I don’t know what that’s like, but I imagine a pain that is completely soul crushing. I have a friend who told me once about losing her child before it was even 2 weeks old and I sat and cried with her, and then cried on the plane after our visit, still under the spell of pain and anguish. I do know that it’s not something you ever get over and that some people never move past it.

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It’s this particular kind of pain that makes children’s burials so poignant and also so very personal. It is usually on these graves where we see the most creativity, the sweetest pictures, and the most gifts left on the grave. A concentrated space for children in a cemetery is usually called Babyland, and it’s usually marked with a sign as if you couldn’t tell already by the style of the headstones and the feel of the place. If the family already has a plot purchased, the child will usually go with the rest of the family. If not, the plot is purchased in the section for babies instead. At Greenwood Cemetery here in Orlando there are three Babyland sections, and one of them is a newer space and is always fluttering with balloons, pinwheels, and wind chimes. It’s an active space within the cemetery, and I love that. When we went the week after Halloween to take some pictures we found that someone had gone through the entire section and left 3 pieces of candy on each grave, as though the babies had been trick-or-treating.

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Headstones for children range from the more sedate stones to ones that are in the shape of cartoon characters or small animals. A Pac-Man in South Carolina comes to mind that was designed for an eight year old boy. The traditional stone for children usually has a lamb on the top, though I have seen them with small birds that appear the be lying down. A lot of children’s stones have some type of picture on them, which can be heartbreaking to see. I particularly like the photos that aren’t studio pictures, but ones where the child is playing and happy. I have a favorite one of these that I featured in a previous post. It was during my last visit to Greenwood that I saw my first post-mortem portrait of a child on a headstone, and it startled me as the date was from the 1990’s. I had always believed this to be a much older custom (also more European) and had never seen a post-mortem on any headstone before. It startled me a bit because it was unexpected given the dates in this plot- which ranged from 1975 to present day, essentially my own lifespan.

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My favorite type of child’s markers are the ones with the child lying down, usually on some type of draped bed. They’re beautiful and peaceful but not something that I get to see that often. I saw two of them recently, one in Magnolia Cemetery and one in Bethany Cemetery, both in Charleston. There is also a good example of a child reclining on a bed at St. Roch’s Cemetery in New Orleans, right when you enter the cemetery gates. However, that’s not what makes that cemetery so spooky. If you’ve never been, it’s what’s inside the chapel that will make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. (Google it.) In Savannah one of the most famous child’s graves is that of Gracie Watson in Bonaventure. She had so many visitors and gifts that the cemetery erected a fence around her to keep her safe. Even with the fence, there are gifts left everywhere for her, and of course there are always rumors that she walks around the cemetery at night.

The baby section in the Geneva Cemetery here in Florida is fenced off completely with a wooden picket fence, as though they wanted people to stay out of the section. When you lean over the fence with your hands on the top to look in, you get the same sensation of looking into a crib and I wondered if that was part of the planning since the plot is so small and only holds a few children.

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I think for me one of the most interesting aspects of the Babyland sections is the type of sculpture chosen for the space. In Greenwood there is an angel looking down at her empty hands, as if she had been cradling a child and looked down to find that it was suddenly gone. I suppose it’s also a way for grieving parents to imagine their own children held in those heavenly arms and perhaps find some comfort in that.

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Evergreen

“I feel like I can really breathe in here. Like I can finally take a deep breath,” Caroline said as we stood shoulder to shoulder, looking into the thick green forest around us. There was a pungent smell of wet leaves and earth and it was pleasant to inhale. This place had a feeling to it, not only the feeling of being the only two people on a vast property, but there was a feeling of being absorbed by a giant living organism, of being a part of it. Evergreen was embracing us with its grassy arms.

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The trees towered over our heads, draped with ivy and other creeping vines that had taken over during the years. We stood on the path in Richmond’s historic African-American cemetery, Evergreen, which is actually a total of four different cemeteries. The path had at some point been a paved road and it was now obscured by weeds and poison ivy, showing little more than a footpath when at one point it could accommodate cars. Any open space between trees was covered with vines, climbing roses that someone had lovingly planted at one time, and lillies that had been planted on top of graves and had taken over during the years. They now created spots of bright orange in the verdant landscape. It was the greenest place I had ever seen, and remarkably beautiful. Evergreen lived up to it’s name. We stood in the muffled woods of the 60 acre cemetery staring in wonder all around us, listening to the drops of water hitting the leaves and birds singing in the tops of the trees. The white sunlight was dappled and barely reached us beneath the canopy and as a result the cemetery felt like a steam bath after the recent rain. My shirt was stuck to my back and shoulders within minutes; my bangs glued themselves to my forehead.

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The first day we stayed close to the car, looking around at the tops of headstones peeking through the foliage. Gates and ornate wrought iron fences were woven with weeds and tall grass, making it difficult to see the designs. A large mown path bisected the first part of the cemetery and when we walked down it we saw more and more headstones begin to reveal themselves to us through the plant life. Not only was the place choked with weeds, it was full of burials too. The stones we saw were large and ornate and varied in design. There were supposed to be over 6,000 burials here, and we could see maybe 5% of them.

Part of what protects Evergreen right now is that you’d have to be a damn fool to veer off the path for even a second since you literally can’t see the ground for the weeds. There’s no telling what lives in that place, and there is a water source nearby so it’s the perfect environment for snakes and other wildlife. The other thing protecting it is the presence of volunteers that are trying to restore it bit by bit on regular work days. When people come to a place, vandalism usually stops. Vandals like secrecy and for a long time, this place was essentially that- a secret. While I was in Richmond we asked several people if they had heard of the cemetery and all of them said no. Everyone had heard of Hollywood Cemetery though, known for it’s showy beauty and famous burials. In my opinion this cemetery is just as valuable as a historic resource, but they did not set themselves up for perpetual care when they established the cemetery in 1891. We were standing in the consequences of that decision.

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The next morning over omelettes at Ellwood’s we decided to go back. Just for a few minutes we said. Just to see what was at the end of the path. I had heard of a mausoleum on the property and wanted to see if we could find it, plus, I wanted to see any land that the volunteers had been able to clear. The mausoleum had been targeted by vandals several times over the years, starting sometime in the 70’s when the cemetery began to be left to its own devices and people stopped visiting. However, it had been my impression that each time it would be repaired and would continue to be repaired after every act of vandalism.

So we found ourselves surrounded again by the comforting green of the cemetery within a couple of hours, and we walked with purpose. When the woods in front of the path began to clear we were astonished to find that we were on top of a hill and the hill had in fact been cleared. We saw a Madonna…then an angel…then a beautiful obelisk surrounded by conch shells. I recognized some of the names I saw on headstones from my research. Paths led from the main area into the woods, which were filled with headstones and family plots with beautiful markers. Most were almost completely obscured by creeping ivy and small pink roses. It looked like something out of a dream.

We chose a path at random and found ourselves in a kudzu covered field with monuments poking out of the vines here and there. It was vast and beautiful, and the mystery of what lay beneath the green carpet of plants was almost too much for me to bear. I wanted leather gloves and a herd of hungry goats. NOW. Past that was a cleared field that held a large amount of smaller monuments and was very pretty. But no mausoleum. I felt like it was the way we had come and that we’d missed it.

We circled the area slowly one more time and I saw a tiny dirt track that had been carved out of the ivy, leading farther into the woods. The path was hard packed dirt and had clearly been walked sometime recently, and it was slick from the rain. I started down it. After a couple of minutes I looked up to find a green box in the woods. Literally, the entire mausoleum was draped in ivy on 2 sides. Caroline caught up to me and we jumped down to it from the path. It appeared that the stairs were missing, though we later noticed that railing ran next to the structure that we had not observed at the time.

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When we got to the front though, things changed. In fact, the whole trip changed. At some point the doors had been removed and the opening had been walled up by concrete block. This had been smashed with a sledgehammer and the coffins inside had been pulled down from their shelves and opened. The hardware had been pulled off and was most likely sold. The remains were most likely gone as well because the coffins had been wrenched open with a crowbar and on one, since they couldn’t get it off the shelf they had gone through the underside of it for the remains. I didn’t look for more than a few seconds. Caroline stood beside me, quiet.

I was nauseous when I turned away, and I was trembling all over. I started rubbing my face with my hands and my skin felt gritty and slick with sweat and tears. I’d started crying. Caroline and I walked quietly back to the car, but on the way we stopped one more time under the tall trees and inhaled deeply.

“Let’s go get a drink,” she said, and we left. I cried more in the car, but Caroline knew exactly what to say to me. I think it’s a gift that mothers have.

Because we were hot and thirsty, and because the wine was cold and delicious, I ended up wobbling around Cary Town for the next hour or so with puffy, dilated eyes and a buzz. At the wine bar we decided that in the fall I would travel back and we would go visit again when some of the foliage had died off. Maybe we could see more. I didn’t know that I’d go look for the mausoleum again, that had just been so sad. It takes tremendous violence to do something like that and it was that knowledge that scared me. I suppose that when the same thing keeps happening and there’s no money and no visitors anyway, then the repairs just stop and people give up. This was a turning point for me and I’m not sure yet what will come of it.

My greatest wish would be to raise a truckload of money for the people working on Evergreen. For the time being, until I figure some things out, you can make a donation and learn more here.

We as human beings determine the value of a place by how we treat it, and I am so grateful for people who want to restore this cemetery to it’s former glory, though even as it is, it’s glorious. If you visit please take the greatest care when on the property.

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Lake Hill Cemetery in Orlo Vista

Sometimes things just catch your attention for no specific reason, and that is how I ended up researching this couple in Lake Hill Cemetery. Even though I was interested in them both, I will admit that women’s stories really fascinate me and I spent a bit more time on Katharina Gemeinhardt’s story than I did her husband.

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A handmade headstone in Lake Hill Cemetery.

But first, a little bit about the mysterious Lake Hill Cemetery in Orlando. It’s in the Orlo Vista area off of Old Winter Garden Road, and it’s small cemetery with about 1000 interments and is full of personal mementos left on the graves. On the right side of the cemetery you’ll find older stones that date back to the mid-1800’s, including a large section for the Patrick family. On the other side you find a number of interesting handmade stones and some graves with a little more creativity. (Mr. Short Legs made me stop and stare.)

Researching this cemetery has been challenging, and one surprise that I got was that the cemetery was once called the Patrick Cemetery, but I was unable to find out the year that it was renamed or why. I found the name Patrick Cemetery on three of the burial records I located for the Gemeinhardt family, some of which are laid to rest there, including Katharina. The cemetery is close to the Lake Hill Baptist Church which may be why it was renamed, either due to ownership or because the cemetery may have once served the needs of that congregation.

The Lake Hill cemetery is a deeply personal one, with a lot of mementos crowding the tops of the graves. We visited at Christmas and two of the graves even had complete, decorated Christmas trees sitting on them. Several of the graves have teacups and saucers, waiting to be filled. (An article that mentions the history of the cemetery and a clean-up in 1991 and can be found here.)

There is a discreet visitor to the cemetery that leaves magical objects such as black feathers and burned candles in different containers, or just stuck into the ground on top of the graves. It makes the visits more interesting when I’m wondering what will be there the next time I go.   

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Four of the family members are buried here.

The headstones for one particular family stood out to me, they have some scroll work on them and the names are unusual, which proved to be challenging when I was looking them up on Ancestry. Katharina was listed under different variations on several different documents, including her ship’s passage from Germany. She was Kate, Katherine, and Katharina, while her husband was William and Wilhelm. Katharina’s middle name was a variation of Rachel that also caused the poor census takers in the 20’s and 30’s some confusion. I found Rachel and Rachiel. She and William were married in 1885 on August 18 in Missouri, the same year that she came to America from Germany. Think of all that change in one year- a new country and a new husband fourteen years older than she was, and children very soon after. It would be extremely challenging.

I moved to Texas from Florida in my 20’s and my hair fell out for 3 months, so I can’t imagine how my body would react to something this drastic.

William (1851-1937) immigrated to the states in 1869, and his older brother John (1843-1932) immigrated two years earlier in 1867. Census records indicate that the family spoke English and owned their own property, but while it specifies that John was a farmer and worked in orange groves, it does not specify what William did. Together, he and Katharina had eight children. Both of their parents were born in Germany, and they were the first generation in the states. John had a wife and 2 children who are buried elsewhere. 

I was unable to find a burial record for William, but there was one for his wife that strangely did not list a cause of death. She outlived her husband by 9 years and was laid to rest beside him and one of their children. 

Only one of their 8 children is buried in this small plot, and that was Thomas J. 1889-1916, who died from Tuberculosis.

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Orlando’s first settler.

This cemetery boasts that the first settler in Orlando is buried there, a Captain Aaron Jernigan 1813-1891. He is here with his family, and there is a small memorial to him at the front of the property. I feel like this space holds a lot of history and many incredible stories, and hope to do more research in the future for additional posts.

The Gemeinhardt family is to the right of the cemetery toward the middle. Look out for candles!