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.

John Ivey in Lake Hill Cemetery, Orlo Vista, Florida

Warning! I have very few photos  for this post. These headstones are in a shaded area and I visited 3 times at different times of day in an attempt to get better photos, but to no avail. John Ivey just does not want to be photographed.

I’ve wanted to write about John Ivey for quite some time, but this is the first opportunity that I’ve had to kind of dive into a little research in awhile. Lake Hill is one of my favorite cemeteries in Orlando, and it’s the one that I go to after storms and hurricanes to make sure everything is still okay. When I’m there I always stop by Mr. Ivey’s grave site and check on their plot.

The cemetery used to be called the Patrick Cemetery and when you go you will see several names over and over again, Patrick, Beasley, Jernigan, and Ivey. Many of the bodies here were moved from the original Patrick cemetery to this plot in 1884, and have been here ever since. This cemetery is of historical significance because the people here were some of the first founders and pioneers in Orlando, though the place looks unassuming and simple. Other Orlando influences can be found in Greenwood Cemetery downtown, which is more ostentatious than simple Lake Hill. Aaron Jernigan has his own tidy memorial right in front of the small shed on the property (next to the flagpole). Someone regularly leaves alcohol for him, and it appears that is preferences are Wild Turkey and Jim Beam. I’m a Beam girl myself.

John Ivey (1834-1923) was a man with many jobs. First, he was husband to two different women in his life, and he had 6 children with each of them. Next, he was Orange county’s first Sherriff and tax collector. Finally, he was the elected Justice of the Peace and Coroner. Viewing their page on Find-A-Grave is wonderful, you see who married who, what their headstones look like, and how the family merged with the Patrick family by marriage. I’d love to see their family tree!

John Ivey died at 1:30 a.m. at home, and his funeral was the next day. His funeral record does not list a cause of death, but he was elderly. His occupation was listed as “Farming”, so he must have retired a gentleman farmer.

Nearby you will see the grave of Emma R. Ivey, who is supposedly the first burial at this site in 1884. She and several of the family members have beautiful hand stamped headstones with the patent at the bottom of a couple of them, and delicate floral (or maybe wheat?) motifs. I LOVE them. These are the ones I panic over during storms since there are so many trees nearby. After the last hurricane when I got to the cemetery several large branches had fallen near the stones, almost encircling them but barely touching them. These stones are similar to ones in Greenwood Cemetery downtown that have an ivy and anchor motif stamped on them. She is the daughter of John and Matilda.

If you get a chance please visit Lake Hill Cemetery. The Ivey plot is to the far right once you’re in the gates.

Last weekend was our first ‘official’ clean up at Page Jackson Cemetery and I was thrilled to see the people who showed up pour their hard work and passion into restoring the cemetery. They asked questions, vowed to come back, and scrubbed off lichen like they’d been doing it all their lives. I felt so lucky to be there on such a beautiful morning with such an incredible group of people. The next one will be this fall, and we will be advertising it early so we can get a larger group. I hope I can meet some of you.

Additionally, please take a look at what my friend Chris is doing this summer! She’s traveling to cemeteries in the Eastern U.S. in preparation for another book. I enjoyed her last book, Drawn to The Dark, which is about her travels all over the world to explore different forms of dark tourism. My favorite chapter was on the Krampus Festival in Salzberg, which sounded both terrifying and painful. Apparently, you can attend a Krampus Lauf and get whacked on the legs- hard enough to leave a welt. She also went to Italy, Japan, and (my dream trip) Transylvania. If trips like these sound like your dream vacation, be sure to check out her book!

 

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.

Blue Graves In The South

I hope everyone had a beautiful Christmas and a Happy New Year!
I’ve been collecting photos for this post for some time, thinking that as the time passed I’d gather more information about this and have an awesome post to write.
But that didn’t really happen. Additionally, something is weird with my formatting for this post, so forgive me.
Blue grave sites in the south are still a bit of a mystery. I’ve heard several different reasons for painting the graves, and I will share all of them here. Special thanks to Dave Lapham for his help on this, and also to Barbara Broxterman, who offered a good deal of information as well.Barbara lives near and old (but still very active) cemetery in Levy County and was able to talk to some ladies who were there one day working, cleaning the graves. Apparently, they have a small business doing just that for other families who aren’t able to do the work themselves. I loved that.
Haint Blue, as it’s called, is a soft blue color generally found on porches in the Southern states. I never really noticed it until last summer when we were looking at houses in Sanford. Two of the homes that we visited had a gentle blue paint on the porch. I didn’t like it much though I did think it gave the porches a fresh, airy feeling. Shawn thought it was odd. Now that I know what I know, I’ll be adding blue to my porches this year.
The blue color is there because of Southern superstition. It is said to fool insects into thinking it’s an extension of the sky, so they’ll go elsewhere and not linger. It’s also said to drive away bad or evil spirits from the home. Both are positive reasons to add a little blue to your porch.
So why put blue on a grave? I know a lot of people believe that bad spirits linger in cemeteries and they would naturally want to protect their loved ones, so they’d paint the grave topper or ledger stone blue. In some cases the color can match the color of the house of the deceased or their families, and thereby continue to tie them to their home or make them feel at home in the cemetery. And then there was the more basic answer- that the paint is used to seal the cracks in the concrete. I guess that is possible too, but the paint is usually blue or white. I even noticed blue tiles in a mausoleum fountain, and even though blue is the usual color for that kind of water feature, I still felt it’s significance when you have to pass the fountain to approach the dead in the mausoleum.
This information made me pause to consider my own use of the color blue when it comes to visiting cemeteries. I have a favorite blue tee shirt that I usually wear, and my boots are blue. I wear blue shorts when I’m visiting a cemetery in hot weather, not because they’re blue, but because they fit well and I’m not worried about getting them dirty. If I was trying to protect myself in some way by doing these things it was done unconsciously.
I’ve noticed that in a lot of African American cemeteries that blue is a choice color for floral arrangements. I know this is sometimes done for men or boys, but it does seem to be very popular. What I do know is that once you start seeing blue in cemeteries, you’ll notice it everywhere.
While in New Orleans this past weekend we were fortunate enough to see the Weeping Angel in Metairie Cemetery, who is perfectly placed under 3 panes of blue stained glass, casting a moody light onto her. Aside from this mausoleum, there were many with blue glass throughout the cemetery, but to me she will always be the most beautiful with the most artfully arranged lighting.
Because I wasn’t able to find out much about this topic please share if you have more information! I’d love to hear some other ideas about why blue is so popular in cemeteries. Thanks to everyone who reads the blog, and I hope everyone has a happy and prosperous New Year!

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.

 

Adamsville Cemetery…Somewhere In Florida

I’ve been really sick for the last 3 weeks so I’m behind on a lot of things including cemetery visits, writing, and phone calls since I’ve been coughing so much. Thankfully this week Shawn and I have some time off together and will be running around to find some new places to visit. I’m excited to get out of the house. The new job that I started 2 months ago has been the most miserable work experience I’ve ever had, so I’m on the hunt for other things in my life besides cemeteries. But let’s talk about pleasant things instead, like the Adamsville Cemetery.

Adamsville Cemetery is said to be in Levy County in one source, and Sumter County in another. I vote for Sumter being correct. We didn’t really start out with a plan to go see it, but I knew it was on the way to where we were going and figured we’d do a drive by. However, what caused us to stop was not the actual cemetery (though that turned out to be a treasure), it was the small mausoleum that we passed that was literally in the church parking lot. It was the strangest placement for a mausoleum I’ve ever seen, as though they weren’t sure where it would look best but hell, they really wanted one… and hey, there’s a spot right there that’s only being used to park cars on Sunday. It was the true 1960’s style that I’ve seen in several places in Florida (including another almost identical model in Sumter county), and it was pretty hideous. The other one that I’ve seen like that had an alarming smell coming from it and I left that cemetery in a hurry. It happens sometimes.

On this day, Maryanne and I stood there quietly soaking in it’s odd placement while she smoked a cigarette and I just stared blankly.  Needless to say, we both had to get a photo with it.

On one side of the street you’ll find the new memorial park, and on the other, beckoning to you from the shady gloom, is the old section of the cemetery. There are lots of great examples of funerary art here. It’s said to be the oldest cemetery in this county, dating back to what one source said was 1902, but it’s way older than that since we saw stones dating back to the 1880’s and wooden markers as well.

The wooden markers were laid flat on the ground, almost obscured by the carpet of green that cloaks this cemetery and makes it so beautiful and unusual for Florida. We would have missed them if we hadn’t gone down that row, but we saw the wood and knew at once what we were looking at. However, we were in for a surprise. Maryanne lifted one by the top to see if there was any writing or carving and while they were so faded that we couldn’t read anything, they were anthropomorphic styled markers. I was nearly beside myself with excitement. These markers are not ones that we see every day around here. In fact, I’ve only ever seen one and it was made of concrete in Melbourne (in the Shady Oaks Cemetery). The shape is supposed to represent the head and shoulders of a human. They’re quite beautiful to begin with, but to see them in wood was really wonderful. Florida’s wooden markers don’t last too long, but there are still some great examples here and there that have survived our humidity and rainfall. There are a couple of great examples left in Greenwood Cemetery in Orlando.

The cemetery’s history can be read on Find A Grave, and there’s a lot of material to cover so I won’t include a synopsis here, but the church and the cemeteries are the last pieces of what used to be the Adamsville community. I can’t really convey the dark, mysterious beauty of this cemetery, due largely to the very old Cypress trees on the property. I will say that this is a must-see for any taphophile in Florida. Find A Grave has some semblance of directions to it and the mausoleum makes a handy landmark!

 

Before the Hurricane

Maryanne and I were separated at birth. I’m sure of that. We started talking in a Facebook cemetery group and when we met in person a year later (for tea in a local tearoom) we were the only women in there amid a flurry of floral dresses and hats that were mostly dressed down, and we were the only two people in the place talking about embalming techniques. Neither of us is high maintenance. Both of us think cremation is the way to go. Neither of us is afraid of dead people.

Maryanne wanted to go see a family member in a cemetery in Chiefland, Florida, two hours from Orlando, and she asked me to go. I will always go visit a cemetery with someone, so I immediately said yes and asked what kind of snacks to bring.

We jumped in the car at 11 a.m. on a Wednesday before the hurricane was supposed to hit over the weekend. Since we’ve both lived in Florida for years neither of us was panicked and both of us felt prepared. However, the rest of the Floridians had other ideas. It took us two and a half hours to get to Adamsville Cemetery, which you’ll see in another post, and a total of five hours to get to Chiefland Cemetery.

Chiefland is small and situated in Levy county, which I was unaware of until we passed the sign. The population is about 2,300, and it’s rural. Horses and agriculture everywhere. We had to take 2 dirt roads to get to the cemetery, and when we finally found it after five hours in the car it felt like a miracle. We got out gratefully, stretched, and it immediately began to rain.

Maryanne handed me a brightly striped umbrella and we started down the aisles of headstones. At the back of the cemetery was a section for the slaves of the Hardee family, which are numerous in the cemetery. The large flat stone reads, Buried Here Are Faithful Servants of Isaac  P.  Hardee. The family is about 20 steps away from this section, which is something I’ve never seen. I wish that the servants had been named, of course, but I still loved seeing the tribute. Mister Hardee himself was right there and his original stone was on the ground, barely legible, but it had been framed in concrete and a new stone in the same style and with the exact same font had been erected in its place. I loved seeing the original and also being able to read the new one, which was quite unusual in it’s simplicity. It was actually my favorite stone that I saw that day.

Maryanne had found her family member by that time, and she told me that she was named after her. Marie Theresa Hampton was less than a year old when she died on August 19, 1949. Maryanne told me that the story itself was quite tragic and that the little girl had a sad and horrible death with far reaching repercussions, but I honestly feel that the story is for her to tell, and so she may be doing a blog post about her in the future. The little grave was beautifully bright amid all of the darker headstones, and Maryanne bent down to touch the stone for a minute before placing pink flowers on the grave. We said the next time we came we’d bring D-2 solution and clean her headstone.

The cemetery itself is beautiful and has a gazebo with a tin roof and trees all around, so the rain was very loud at times, but that only added to the experience for me. An even greater surprise was seeing the cemetery map, well labeled and preserved, and….legible! I was thrilled. I love seeing the maps but they’re not easy to find. Some of the larger cemeteries will provide a map for you at their offices, and I keep them and frame them when I get one.

Near the back of the cemetery there are two graves with a very unusual feature, something I’d never seen before. The better example of the two simply reads INFANT in block letters that are painted on glass and then embedded in the concrete grave topper. They were quite old but in perfect condition.

Before we got back in the car to fight the traffic on the way home we stood there for awhile, me under the umbrella and Maryanne smoking. She talked about possibly having Marie disinterred and moved to her family cemetery in Orlando, which would mean that the little girl would get to lay next to her parents. I asked about costs, and whether there would be anything left to move at this point, but she felt there might be something. She planned to talk to her parents about it when she saw them over the weekend. She is the only Hampton in the cemetery.

There can be so much emotion in a place like this, when you bend down to touch the stone of that loved one and you’re not seeing the stone, you’re seeing their history and their connection to you. Maryanne certainly never met Marie, but she loves her. It’s obvious. It made me want to visit Kentucky and the cemetery where my family members are buried, just to see what that feels like since I didn’t know them personally. I know them through story and on paper, from the family genealogy my aunts have worked on for years. It’s days like this that make me realize how important markers are for those left behind and why I Iove cemeteries so much.

It took us three hours to get home. I had gummy bears and a protein bar for dinner. We passed gas stations with lines running out of the parking lot and down the street. We stopped at a Publix and the water aisle was empty. Central Florida was scared.

If you’re in Florida I hope you fared well during Irma- and I apologize for the photo quality in this post.

Locke Family Cemetery on Boggy Creek Road

This one was a surprise. I’m not even sure how to describe how I got there, Shawn and I were talking and I was fiddling with the music the entire time we were driving. It was hot. I needed a snack. I’d run out of iced tea from Starbucks already. You get the picture.

When we finally pulled up to the gate we found that it was indeed a small family cemetery on the side of the road, and that we had to park on the shoulder because there wasn’t designated parking. The first thing we saw was a big sign that said No Trespassing, and another that said the cemetery was monitored by video surveillance. We ignored them both and unlatched the gate to walk in since it was broad daylight and the gate wasn’t locked. I did take a quick look around though and I saw that the telephone pole next to the cemetery had a floodlight on it aimed at the cemetery, and I know that goes a long way toward preventing vandalism. If I heeded by every No Trespassing sign that I saw I’d never get any writing done because I’d be avoiding every cemetery I’ve ever been in. I usually will research them first to see if they’re privately owned. If so I’ll still visit anyway and see if the gate is locked. If it is, I don’t go in.

This cemetery is OLD, which was another surprise. Almost all of the names are Lock or Locke, but supposedly there is a Jane Green buried there who was in a specific type of trade and ‘worked’ with the cattlemen in the area. Having once dated a farmer who raised cattle for breed stock, I have to say I do not blame her one bit. Nothing makes my hormones stir like a man on a horse, but that isn’t really relevant. Whether or not the story about Jane is actually true remains a mystery, but it’s the legend, and I remember stopping in wonder at her modern headstone because she lived to be 99 years old.

There are some beautiful hand stamped headstones in the center rows that date back to 1892 and 1898. My favorite of the two features a star motif stamped into the top curve of the stone and the epitaph reads “She Died Triumph In The Lord”. Her name was also unusual, Marzila Lock.

When you walk though this cemetery is seems like it’s another sandy lot filled with burrs and old headstones, but when you stand back and view it from the front you notice that a large section is shaded by a beautiful oak tree, and I stood for a moment imagining those strong roots carefully holding the people together underground. All of my shots from the gate were beautiful.

 

Find A Grave shows 67 burials on the lot but I’m pretty sure there were more given the age of the cemetery, and there are a surprising number of children buried here. 12 out of the 67, in fact.

And finally, a particularly nice tribute on Find A Grave is this one for Cennie Tison Lock, and it shows how large this family really was. Enjoy.