Camp Captain Mooney Cemetery in Duval County

Sounds like something from a storybook, right? When I was a kid I loved a book called The Magical Drawings of Mooney B. Finch, and I read it until it fell apart. That was the first thing I thought of when my mom drove me up to the gates of this historic cemetery. She loves cemeteries too and will scout out new locations for me to see when I go visit her, and she almost always goes with me. One time last year I did sneak off to see one that she told me probably wasn’t safe to go to by myself, and I told her about it afterwards.

“Well, how was it? ” she asked.

“I think it was fine. I never saw anyone.”

She just smiled and said she wanted to go with me next time.

The Camp Captain Mooney Cemetery is a surprise. It’s set way back in what’s part neighborhood, part business/warehouse area- which is how Jacksonville is designed anyway. There’s wasn’t a lot of reason applied to the layout. This is a small cemetery and the only hazard I can think to warn you about ahead of time is that the ground can be quite spongy. My mom walks with a cane and was basically doing ground testing while she was walking around because her cane kept sinking.

The cemetery was established on March 1st, 1864 after a short battle (the Battle of Cedar Creek), and the creek is nearby and is actually quite sizeable. There is also a historical marker there and you can get out and take pictures because even though it’s on a busy road, there is a place to pull over and a sidewalk. The death toll for the day included 7 Confederates, 2 Union, with others wounded and some captured. Writing about battles is not my strong suit, so I’m including the Wikipedia article. The cemetery was started on the day of the battle; the dead were buried there, and it was used for some time though it is very small, with only about 114 interments. Captain Mooney is there also- and his veteran’s headstone doesn’t have a birth date or death date on it.

There are some wonderful headstones here and quite a few handmade ones. I’ve been to this cemetery twice, and the first time I noticed four graves, looked at the stones, and must have blanked out because I didn’t notice that all four graves had the same death date. Shawn and my mom called me over to look on this visit, and I took photos to do some research. Emma, Dora, and Mary Silcox all died on June 26, 1927, along with their friend Frances Norton. Mary was 15, Dora was 12, and Emma was 9 years old. Frances was a friend of the family and was only 19. They drowned during a boating accident at Clearwater Lake in Jacksonville, which is now a place to hike and fish. I can’t imagine what that family went through losing three of their children and a close friend in one day.

Private James S. Turknett is also buried here even though the  Turknett Cemetery is right down the road- it’s connected to the Smith Cemetery. The Turknett’s are buried in the back and the gate to that part of the cemetery has a bright blue sign that reads Turknett Cemetery, while on the other side it says Smith Cemetery on a very formal plaque. There is also a third set of gates that are probably for hearse access that are large, fancy wrought iron and do not have any name on them. These two cemeteries are in the back of a neighborhood and there was yet another sign posted on a light pole warning about fees associated with disturbing graves or remains, and that the fine is up to 5,000 dollars, 5 years in jail, or both. It’s a 3rd degree felony and I wish more people would think it through before they decide to do something that stupid.

If you do find yourself in Jacksonville and want to see something a little more unusual before you head off to the Victorian glory of Evergreen or the Old City Cemetery downtown (best to keep your wits about you down there, that one is a little weird), then these three cemeteries are worth a look.

Camp Captain Mooney is now owned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and it is always impeccable every time I go. Just be careful with your cane. Also, Shawn and I have a knack for finding bones in cemeteries (animals, thankfully) and this trip had a small surprise as well.

Rosalie Raymond White in Magnolia Cemetery

I’ve been reading recently about the prevalence of finding a likeness on a tombstone ever since I saw this grave last month. It’s quite rare to see a death mask on a tombstone, and the rumor is that the tiny face on this unusual marker is in fact a death mask, or a likeness taken after death.

Today there are various ways of including the person’s face on their tombstone- ceramic portraits are still popular, and now I’m starting to see more and more laser etching actually on the headstone, creating what is basically a black and white portrait of the person. While these are extraordinarily detailed and large, they don’t thrill me the same way that ceramics do. I think they’re beautiful in an old-fashioned sort of way, and they can be quite varied. One friend of mine actually saw one that had a couple captured while sleeping on the couch, both wearing horrible Christmas sweaters.

image2

However, a death mask is in a completely different class. I’ve seen pictures of headstones in Alabama created by artist/inventor Isaac Nettles. While they’re still called death masks, Mr. Nettles created these likenesses while the person was alive, and then incorporated the masks into headstones. They’re arresting, to say the least. The Mt. Nebo Cemetery is on my list of places to visit just to see these.

I’d heard about the baby grave in Magnolia Cemetery before we went to Charleston, and it was high on my list of headstones to find when we got there. But as it turns out so many times when we’re on these visits, we found it by chance. We were driving through just to get an idea of the massive cemetery layout when Shawn stopped the car and said, “Look at that!”

image4

We were parked right by it.

image5

Rosalie Raymond White’s  (d. 1882) headstone is actually a detailed bassinet, and her likeness is peering out of it with a green patina to her little face. I touched it but was unable to determine what the face was made of, but it had eyes that seemed to follow me uncannily as I walked around the plot. The bassinet was actually a planter and had flowers blooming in it that someone had kept up with, and small toys left by admirers littered the space. The plot itself was fascinating, and also sad. All of the stones were extremely detailed, including one for a child called Rosebud that was a sleeping baby ensconced in a kind of shell or shrine. Her marker does not have any dates and I assumed that she was stillborn (though I prefer the term born sleeping). The sad part was that out of all of Rosalie and Blake White’s six children, four died before they’d even survived a year. This plot backs up to the water that wanders through the cemetery, some parts back up to a pond and much of the property (including the beautiful mausoleum row) faces the marsh and unfortunately has the smell of the marsh, especially around the receiving tomb built in 1850. (Go inside it, it’s amazing and seats 4.)

image1

Magnolia Cemetery was opened in 1850 and is sprawling. We went three times, once to get a peek before they closed, then the same night for the Confederate Ghost Walk, and then the next day to see the mausoleums, which are outstanding and varied. Many of them were open, so you can wander inside and check out the architecture. I went in all of them that were open. Shawn did not, but to his credit he did go in the receiving vault which had cobwebs hanging like stalactites and smelled funny. The property is still an active cemetery serving the Charleston community and also has a gorgeous new mausoleum space on the premises. The Ghost Walk started from there so we got to spend some time walking around it under the full moon.

image6

The walk itself was really amazing, it was an hour and a half long moonlight tour with costumed reenactments of the highlights of Charleston history. It was 18 bucks and I would have done it again the next night if it was taking place again, but it’s only once a year so GO! I was having a great time until we got to the last stop. In the middle of the speech made by the uniformed actor the woman next to me took two steps back from the group and fainted, dropping to her knees as her husband tried to catch her fall.

That stirred things up a bit, as I’m sure you can imagine. Thankfully, she was okay and was sitting quietly on the steps of a family plot when we left, drinking water and surrounded by women in hoopskirts.

The Little Huntley Church and Cemetery

I saw this church while we were on our way to Boone, and I looked at Shawn and said, “I’m sorry, but you have to stop.” The sun was going down and we didn’t have much time, but I really wanted to see it.

So he stopped. We walked around for almost 30 minutes, took pictures, and looked in the windows. Country churches have always had my heart. I think it’s the idea of people gathering in a place where it was most likely their only chance to interact with their community once a week, because the rest of their lives were devoted to hard work on their farms, or taken up with other businesses. But I also think that you can feel devotion in these places. Devotion to God. To gathering together. To building a place by hand for this to happen.

img_3960

In my wanderings I’ve seen many small country churches, but this one stood out because it was quite primitive, with no steeple and a simple graveyard in the back of the sandy lot. I was so excited when I got out of the car I didn’t know what to look at first- the church or the graves.

I’m sure you know which one I headed for first.

Four small graves toward the front were marked with stones and had small pebbles covering them. They were child sized, and all quite close together. Toward the back we began to see taller gravestones that had beautiful elaborate text, all with the same scroll pattern at the top. Many of the dates could not be read, sadly, but it was still wonderful to see them, especially since they were most likely created by the same hand.

img_3954

I walked back up the lot to the church and stood at the front door. The white paint had turned a creamy peach color with the setting sun hitting it and it was just beautiful. I could hear the wood popping and creaking as I stood there on the new ramp they had built to cover the old stone steps leading into the church. But then I noticed a large crack between the two doors, which were closed with a simple padlock. I leaned forward, put my eye to the crack, and looked inside. The pews looked original, and they were dark with age. The church also didn’t appear to have electricity since there were gas lanterns hanging on the walls to provide light. It wasn’t a huge space, but the simplicity of the design and the white walls made the place seem calm and peaceful. Everything stood out on its own; you could see the separate elements.

But the smell! The smell of sunshine on old wood! It was incredible- strong and aromatic. It reminded me of being a kid and climbing up the hay bales to the top of the tobacco barn that my grandfather had on his property. I would lay on top of the bales and breathe in the scent of the wood and the hay, and I would listen to the creaks and moans of the old building, and splatters of rain on the tin roof. The smell of this tiny church took me right back there. The church faced a busy road and I know anyone driving by would see a woman pressed against the front doors, her face wedged as far into the crack between the doors as possible, but I didn’t care. I stood there until Shawn came up and asked to peek.

While he looked I walked over to look into the wavy glass windows to see inside a little better. I was on my tiptoes, and I noticed that in the pulpit there was an ornate upright piano and a painting of a bearded man hanging on the wall. My guess was that he was Joseph Huntley, the builder, because it sure wasn’t the Lord.

img_3951

The church was built in 1902 and Joseph Huntley was buried out back, I had been standing next to his grave when I took some of the photos. If I have the right Huntley, he didn’t get to enjoy his church very long. He died in 1903, a year after the church was completed.

I did read that the church is no longer in use on one website, and that it has services once a year in June on another website (Find A Grave).

img_3952

Earlier this year Caroline and I were driving back from Richmond on a cloudy afternoon and I was looking out the car window, watching the scenery whiz past. There were some woods, and then suddenly a vast cornfield with a very old, weathered church at the back of it. The crops came right up against the church, which had a small steeple. Most of the windows seemed to be gone. The white paint had peeled off with years of storms, snow, and sun, but to me it was absolutely perfect. We thought about turning around to try to stop and get photos, but it would have been difficult since it was literally right off the highway.

Most people have what I call a Million Dollar Dream. Its the one that starts with- If money were no object… and it goes from there. I never wanted a huge house or a Maserati, I’m happy with my education, and I think I have enough jewelry. My splurge would be on an old building- historic, really. Research. Restoration. Maybe a chunk of land. Advertising. Then I’d turn it into a memorial center for funerals and give the proceeds to…somebody.

img_3950

 

Earlier this year one of my friends was hospitalized, and we had no idea what was wrong for a few days. It was terrifying. One night after visiting the hospital I knew I couldn’t make it to my car before I started crying. I knew where the hospital chapel was though, and I went for it. Even though it had lamps, there were still fluorescent lights buzzing away overhead and the chapel was full of industrial chairs turned in all different directions. I sat for awhile, thinking about how I might have felt better braving the stares of others and heading to my car anyway. Modern spaces are a fact of life, but not necessarily a comfort, and I understand that facilities do their best with their funding and their corporate regulations. But still…

I think that if you go though something traumatic, it just might help ease the pain somewhat if you sit in a place that hundreds have sat in before you, and you can feel the weight of all those years, and prayers, and ancestors surrounding you. I’ve never once felt like that in a modern church, no matter how much I love the pastor or how many people attend, but I know that some other people do.

But…not me. If being in an old space comforts me in some way, it might comfort others as well when they need it most.

 

 

The Kissimmee Pioneer Cemetery Failure- and the Oakland Cemetery in Haines City

On the 4th of July weekend we decided to set a day aside for adventure. We planned to drive to the Fort Kissimmee Pioneer Cemetery in Avon Park and see if we recognized any of the names from the other pioneer cemeteries we had visited. We are starting to remember names and the places where people settled and died from all of our visits this year, and this cemetery was supposed to be a good one. I also had a new camera to try out and I felt some excitement about that.

That vanished when we took what we believed was a shortcut and ended up in the middle of no damn where with nothing but orange groves all around. There was nothing- not even a gas station, for miles. Several times when we tried to get back on track we found our phones didn’t have a signal and so the only thing to do was keep going. By the time we found the place I was over it. I wanted a sandwich and an iced tea and a lot of fries. The cemetery resides on an old bombing range owned by the government, and when we pulled up and told them that we wanted to hike out to the cemetery the elderly gentleman running the booth said, “Well, what d’you want to go out there for?”

We just stared at him, because it was an actual wildlife preserve and DID in fact offer hiking, despite being government owned land.

He told us to drive forward for another half a mile until we got to building 600, and he handed us a shitty map. We turned the wrong way- corrected, and then found the building. I asked Shawn to go inside so I could sulk for a minute and try to get myself into a better mood. He came back out to the car and looked at me through the open window, his face blank.

“It’s ten bucks apiece to go in, and we have to go in this building and watch a video on safety since it used to be a bombing range.”

I rolled the window back up and waited for him to get in. By the time we passed the old guy at the gate we were laughing. We’d never worked so hard to go look at a bunch of tombstones, but after 3 hours in the car, we didn’t even want to. The person in building 600 had also mentioned that the entire cemetery is surrounded with a fence and a locked gate and that we couldn’t go in anyway, we could just kind of hang on the fence in the hundred degree heat and stare at it like the bad kids at the playground.

FullSizeRender (1)

We drove back toward Orlando taking a different route, and as soon as we got to Haines City we knew we needed to stop at Zaxby’s for fries and chicken fingers. While there we looked up local cemeteries to see what we could find, and there was one right down the road. We got back in the Jeep and decided to go to the smaller one, Oakland, and leave the larger one (Forest Hill) for the next time we were driving through.

FullSizeRender (6)

Oakland is a two part cemetery. A 2 lane road bisects it and one side is shiny new headstones and greener grass, the other side is older, well kept, but clearly more creative. That’s the side we decided to visit. The other side was also set up for a funeral service and we wanted to make ourselves scarce for that.

We got out at the back of the property and started walking through. It was hot, bleak, sandy, and didn’t have a speck of shade. There were some huge areas of nothing but ledger stones, and some good examples of handmade stones. Many of the graves were unmarked, and some were painted in bright colors. Many families had gone out with rope and had marked off their family plots themselves. It was a kind of do-it-yourself cemetery. Not particularly unusual. Not very old. Largely African-American and Hispanic families interred here.

FullSizeRender (3)

One side backed up to some houses nearby, and there was a field on the other side. The cemetery was not fenced and the road in front was the only entrance and exit.

Here is why these facts stand out- in 2009 a local funeral director dumped a body bag there full of organs from a client he had embalmed the same week. He said the organs were decomposing and he didn’t want them in the funeral home or with the body because of the smell. He left the man’s identification on the bag, and it was traced right back to his funeral home because he had performed his embalming and funeral services (minus the complete cavity embalming, apparently). After his arrest he said that he had been dumping organs there since 2000, but this was never able to be verified. The poor man who led to his arrest was actually buried in another cemetery- not in Oakland.

So many questions! First- why? Embalmers are trained to deal with these situations on a daily basis and most of them are damn good at it. There’s actually a lot they can do to combat smells in facilities and with bodies, so this is just unthinkable. Second- HOW? This cemetery has houses nearby, no fence, a busy road, and is clearly an active, maintained cemetery. There’s no privacy here. I have no idea how he was doing this. It was the most gruesome story I’ve run across while researching cemeteries.

On the way out I walked toward the front to get a photo of a sky-blue gravestone and heard a soft ticking noise nearby. It was consistent.

I looked around and finally found it; one grave was covered with solar activated toys and they were swinging and nodding away in the middle of the hot afternoon. There was no other movement anywhere.

And I totally forgot to use my new camera.

FullSizeRender (2)

 

 

The Church in the Woods

Way, way back in the woods in Marion County.

FullSizeRender (3)
Cedar Grove Methodist Church.

You turn off of the 2 lane highway onto a dirt road that goes a mile back into the Florida scrub. There’s no other turnoffs, no driveways, nothing to show that you’re actually going…somewhere. And then when you’re starting to get all sweaty and worried about how in the heck you’re supposed to turn your car around in the middle of this forest- a clearing appears and there in the middle of it is the cutest little Methodist church you’ve ever seen, and there’s a cemetery behind it.

This church is a well protected site and there are signs everywhere saying that you’re on camera. So behave yourself. We did, for once. The church has a charmingly misspelled sign that reads Cedar Grove Cemetary, which is one of my pet peeves especially since it’s showing up in glaring red as I write this. However, that’s the only fault I could find with this beautiful place. It was well maintained and we never saw another soul as we looked around late one Sunday afternoon. This was a mission church and they have owned the cemetery since 1860. It appears that the church is most likely without running water since there is an outhouse (not even kidding) and a hand pump outside, which Shawn gleefully tried. Interment.net states that the church is no longer in use, and that the cemetery is full. A second source says that this is not the original church; this one was built around 1936 because the first one from 1860 burned down.

FullSizeRender (1)
Outhouse. No plumbing inside, apparently.

Well that just sucks. It’s one of the things that I don’t like about visiting historical sites. Everything has burned to the ground at least one time already.

My favorite stone was a hand-stamped one made of pale yellow stone for Annie Clara Brass, who was just a few month old when she died. Several of the stones in the cemetery were made by the same hand, and they’re beautiful. The Brass family also lost another daughter in 1900, Nina, who was 7 months old. Facts like these make my heart feel heavy when researching these sites. We went recently to the Powell Cemetery on Orange Avenue in Orlando and the dates made it clear just how many people there died from the Spanish Flu. I’m imaginative and these events are easy for me to picture, and then sometimes feel. Three people buried in Powell Cemetery died within one day of each other. It must have been horrible to witness in a small community.

FullSizeRender (5)
Anna Clara’s grave in Cedar Grove.

Another cemetery resident is Archie Brass, who was a local farmer. He married twice, first to Delia, who died, and later to Pennie (Pennie Brass. What a name!) who he later divorced. Delia is buried in the cemetery but Pennie is not. His draft records from 1917 indicate that he was ‘stout’ and had brown eyes and black hair. He was on that land for at least 30 years according to the census- and both of his parents were born in Florida as well.

This area is considered the Gaiter settlement, and nearby was Camp Izard, site of a siege between 1500 Seminole Indians and General Gaines in 1836 which lasted nearly 2 weeks. In 1842 the site was abandoned. Florida became a state in 1845, a few years after the bloodbath. 15 years later the original church was erected on this site.

When we wandered through that day I looked down and found myself standing in a pile of white bones. This would be odd but it’s actually the second time this has happened to me in a cemetery, the first time was in Oakland Cemetery and the victim was a rooster that had been killed some time ago, the tiny bones of the neck and spine looked at first like teeth until I noticed the feathers and leg bones scattered everywhere. This time it was a deer that had died and had completely decomposed down to the bone. The spine was still arced in a gentle curve on top of the pine needles, the leg bones were thick and sturdy and for a few minutes I couldn’t figure out what it was. The jawbone still had the delicate teeth attached. The skull was sadly missing. I sent a photo to a friend of mine that has done a lot of biology work for his art and he pronounced, “It’s a deer”. It had been there undisturbed for so long that I would have wondered if people ever visited, except that the property had been raked and weeded.

If you find yourself in Marion County near Dunnellon anytime soon, look this place up. There’s so much history here that it’s hard to write the post in a concise manner. Just go.

 

 

 

 

Taft Memorial Cemetery- Where They Don’t Allow Anything

When you get out of the car at Taft Memorial Cemetery here is what you’re greeted with- a life-sized statue of The Lord standing next to a large sign that lists all of the things that you can’t do there. Here is what you CAN do…you can bury somebody. But, you can’t bury them and then plant a tree, park a bench, bring a chair, use mulch around the grave…and rocks are also forbidden. Did I mention no pavers? Basically you can just put them in the ground and then sit on the ground with them when you come back to visit. The sign does not mention rules prohibiting any kind of vandalism, but it’s effective anyway because I’m thinking that people are probably scared to come in if they’re faced with a giant list of rules before they even get all the way in the gate. Rules, plus Jesus. I’d think twice.

13086785_10209620266167227_1705802375850562416_o
The Rules and Regulations.

I personally like a more relaxed cemetery environment. In Orlando Lake Hill Cemetery comes to mind. Out of state, Holt Cemetery in New Orleans, where people do tend to get creative because they’re unable to afford more expensive monuments. I like it when people are allowed to get artistic with their tributes and I think that it assists in the grieving process when you are able to create something for that person. Formal cemeteries are pretty, sure, but I like knowing I can sit down with grandpa and really talk, have a glass of iced tea, and plant a tree or even a damned tomato plant if I feel like it. I can make a marker that suits grandpa’s personality. I bought the plot, I hold the deed, and that’s my grandpa.

IMG_2621
Lots of flowers everywhere.

Taft is an active cemetery with a lot of room to grow, and it is very well tended and visited. There are a lot of graves here with entire gardens of fake flowers surrounding them, and a lot of personal mementos left on the graves. If you can get past the front gate the cemetery starts to have a friendly feel to it. Most of the ones I visit have handmade stones as older tributes, but in this space, some of the newer burials had hand made stones, and I thought that was wonderful, even if it was strictly forbidden by The Rules. There was also an unusual section to the left of flat handmade stones, all with a cross motif on them, that ran in a long line through the cemetery. They were quite beautiful. If you walk straight back to the fence there is a section of thick, older handmade stones that cluster together between two small trees. One of the trees has an active swarm of bees in it, so we didn’t stay long.

This cemetery has a very large Hispanic section that was impeccably maintained and brilliant with colored flowers, balloons, and small statues. We stood in the bright sunlight and just looked around for awhile, sweating because it was hot that day. There were statues of the Virgin, cherubs, rotating pinwheels,  and solar lights. It looked like a very quiet party.

Some of the burials go back to the 1880’s and maybe even a little farther, but the cemetery is a good mix of modern and older burials. It’s worth a visit if you aren’t allergic to bees. Unfortunately there is no historical information on this cemetery, none that I could find, anyway. So I can’t say why the place was chosen as a burial site way back in 1880-something, but I always like visiting these places and wondering what was going on at that time.

There may be a lot of rules, but there is a lot of love here as well. You can feel it.

 

San Sebastian/Pinehurst Cemetery on Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s morning was cold this year, but my boyfriend and I woke up in my favorite city, congratulated ourselves on our amazing good fortune at being together, and got ready for a morning in the local cemeteries. The fact that he was willing to go cemetery hopping with me on such a day probably proved that he liked me very much indeed, and we dressed warmly for the occasion and he seemed as excited as I was to be going out. On Valentine’s Day. To look at  graveyard. God bless him.

IMG_2669
Front entrance to Pinehurst/ San Sebastian.

St. Augustine has two cemeteries in the old city that are off limits, so basically if you’re a tapophile you get to hang over the gates with your camera and drool, but that’s it. One of them is the Old Huguenot Cemetery across from the crumbling fort, Castillo de San Marcos, and the other is down a side street nearby, close to the Old Pharmacy turned Potter’s Wax Museum (I’m cringing as I type this) called the Tolomato Cemetery. Both are fiercely protected, and rightly so. A bit farther away is the Mission de Nombre Dios which is the site of the first church service in St. Augustine, and it fortunately has a beautiful cemetery accessible to anyone who wishes to walk through.

However, on this particular morning we were looking for something farther away from the city, an African-American cemetery that was abandoned until recent years. It’s been in several news articles over the years and during the past few months it has been in the caring hands of volunteers and archaeologists as they record the cemetery and hopefully, continue restoration. I really wanted to see it, so we headed to Starbucks and hit the road with hot beverages in our cold hands.

The San Sebastian Pinehurst cemeteries are on one plot of land that reaches pretty far back into the woods. It is marked with a sign and a beaten down chain link fence surrounds the property. The fence had literally been stomped down or run over at some point, so it was just a matter of us stepping over it to enter and we walked right past the gates to do this. The breeze was chilly on my face, and I could smell the crisp scent of wood smoke in the air. Nearby there was a rooster crowing, and I could hear voices coming from the small church across the street as they got ready for their Sunday services. No one seemed to mind that we were there.

As we started our walk around I noticed that there was damage, but I didn’t notice outright vandalism anywhere, such as smashed headstones or monuments that were pushed over. There was a lot of trash though. All of the stones seemed to be fairly low to the ground, and many of them were sunk deep into the soil, leaving just a few inches above ground to read. The deeper in we walked, the more it started to look as if the whole cemetery had been victim to some sort of flood that caused the stones to sink. So many of the graves had also weathered down to fairly deep pits- I’d never seen that kind of sinking in a graveyard. I was grateful for the knee high boots I was wearing. I got stuck in branches several times and the leaf cover was thick. I also sank in the sandy soil once or twice.FullSizeRender (8)

I assumed a lot of the damage was due to the sand, years of neglect, and the presence of many handmade headstones that may not have been placed with the same stability as their funeral home ordered counterparts. The cemetery was also full of graves with ledger stones, concrete pieces the size of the grave that lay on top of the soil. Many of these stones had come from the same place, they were identical and had a black laurel wreath on them or other decorations, like a cross. Many of the name plates were unreadable, just like the gravestones. A lot of the stones had weathered conch shells on top of them, bleached white by decades of sun and rain.

There were two headstones that caught my eye as I looked around. One was a child’s small stone that was near a tree and had toppled over. Ronnie A. Bellamy, it read, 1959-1962. Three years old. The epitaph said “We will meet in the morning.” I photographed it, but later when I looked it up on Find A Grave there was no Ronnie Bellamy listed for either Pinehurst or San Sebastian cemeteries. I also tried Ancestry, and a search of the nearby Evergreen Cemetery with no luck other than a recorded death index.

The other stone was handmade and attracted me because it had very distinct lettering, it stood out because it was so readable, unlike many of the other headstones. Christine Clayborne 1882-1954. I took a careful photo and told myself I’d look her up when I had the time.

FullSizeRender (7)
Ronnie Bellamy.

At the back of the cemetery we noticed that the chain link fence bordered the huge and ostentatiously beautiful Evergreen cemetery that we passed on the way in. Standing there in the dilapidated cemetery looking at all of the gleaming white marble on the other side was an interesting feeling. I sincerely hope that they’re able to save this cemetery from further ruin, it’s no less valid or beautiful than the other one with its angels and obelisks.FullSizeRender (9)

We turned around and right in front of us was a new grave. It startled the hell out of me, the cemetery seemed like it was long past allowing new burials, but there it was, bright and shiny. The roses were fresh and pink, the carnations didn’t have a spot of brown on them, and the bows were still crisp. It was a woman or a young girl, judging by the arrangements. They had laid the ledger stone and coarse sand was piled all around, making it look like a construction site. I looked over my shoulder at the way into the cemetery and thought that they must have done some fancy driving to get this person back here. It would be very easy to drive over a grave in this place and with such heavy leaf cover it would be hard to tell where any road existed aside from the one in the middle of the property. There was no name or funeral home marker.

FullSizeRender (10)
Evergreen Cemetery is nearby.

On the way toward the front we stopped at two brick vaults (I usually refer to them as pizza-ovens because that’s what they remind me of). The face of one of them had fallen over and I bent down to see if it had been pried off or had just fallen over from age. It appeared to be the latter, and the dark, wet smell of earth and mold coming from the stones made me stand and step back. At the front of the cemetery was a grave with a low wall surrounding it that held shells, tin cans rusted brown, soda bottles, a CD with writing on it, pieces of brick and bits of glass. It was an epic collection of momentos. I couldn’t find a name on any of the stones nearby.

As we were leaving we drove through Evergreen and marveled at the difference. It was nicely designed and had many beautiful monuments, including the grave of Randolph Caldecott, the English artist that the Caldecott award is named after. While pretty, it didn’t interest me the way San Sebastian did. I was quiet as we drove off to our lunch reservation at La Pentola,  still wondering about the fate of the cemetery we had wandered through. I was grateful for the people choosing to work on it.

If you visit please tread carefully and I’d advise you not to touch too much since many of the stones are delicate.

Also, you’ll need some good shoes. 

And it turns out that Shawn did indeed like me, because he asked me to marry him that day and I accepted his proposal. Thankfully, he asked me on the beach and not in the cemetery. He is aware that cemetery weddings are popular, and he is also aware that while that interests me, I’m not going to make him do it.

**Postscript- I found out two weeks ago that this cemetery has been officially closed for new burials and the funeral gates have been locked. 

First Aid After Visiting Woodbridge and Maitland Cemeteries

FullSizeRender
A lot of land, not many graves.

On a recent day off I decided to get out of the house and visit two cemeteries that I’d never been to before. The first one was Woodbridge Cemetery in Seminole County, close to Maitland. I drove right past what I thought was a sandy field full of dirt and weeds before I realized that there was a cemetery there. A very big, spread out cemetery without a single shade tree in sight. The whole thing was surrounded by a high chain link fence and I drove by twice before I found the open gate for visitors since the gates for funerals were both padlocked shut.

There was one wooden sign that was brightly painted and tried to make this seem a little less depressing, but it didn’t work. I’d done some reading online and the main thing that I heard about this cemetery was that it was haunted (of course) and that the burials were numerous and extended to the Winn-Dixie parking lot nearby, causing the store to also be harassed by restless spirits. (Give me a break. ) This cemetery was also said to be predominantly African-American and quite old, which interested me. Of course it’s possible that there were more burials than markers, but I have little patience with some of the things I read online when they try to throw in the supernatural slant. Find-A-Grave lists only 115 burials for this rather large chunk of land, so it”s kind of odd, but I doubt the Winn-Dixie is cursed if it’s still there (I didn’t notice it).

FullSizeRender (2)
H.R. Mason’s hand-made marker.
FullSizeRender (1)
Pink paint.

This cemetery bites back, so if you do decide to visit be warned that you’ll need a good pair of closed toe shoes. I was in sandals and had to stop twice to pick multiple sand burrs off of my toes and once off of the arch of my foot. I had to walk a fair distance between headstones because the cemetery was so spread out, and the frequent stops and constant staring at my feet as I walked made me want to leave pretty darn fast. Also, two teenagers saw me enter the cemetery and decided to go in behind me to walk around, so I felt obvious looking at headstones, taking pictures, and cursing the burrs. I had the feeling though that they had never noticed the cemetery was even there, and they were respectfully carrying their skateboards and reading the names on the headstones slowly and looking at everything. When I left they were still there, making their way through the property.

There were a few handmade stones but many of them were illegible, which is a pity. I would have liked to walk around more but it was blazing hot and there was no shade at all, plus after five minutes of walking in sand and weeds I was filthy. I did love the stone for Mason, however, which looked like it had been made by pressing  a nail into wet cement to form the letters, and all of the N’s were backward. A heartwarming home-made tribute.

I’d like to visit again sometime to see the older stones a little better, but  I decided to leave and visit the Maitland Cemetery that was close by and reported to be small, both in land size and in the number of burials, which they list as 334 known burials on Find-A-Grave.

Maitland Cemetery is very small indeed and is beautifully designed to look more like a well established and cared-for park. It is located on on Lake Lucien, and there was a strong breeze the whole time I was there, plus it was mostly shady. I was surprised to see a new burial , raw and obvious in the park-like setting, but the flowered wreaths had died and no one had visited to throw them away. I saw the same thing at Windridge. This cemetery has beautiful old stones and several modern ones, and the cemetery is much older than I had expected, supposedly established in 1892 though some of the burials are before that date. There were two stones that I really liked, one with clasped hands that were perfectly sculpted, and one with a harp motif that I had never seen before. In the corner there was a tiny vault for two people that looked brand new and appeared to be empty since there were no names on it.

At the front of the cemetery were a few very old stones that had been handmade and were really beautiful. I missed them driving in, but when I was walking I noticed them; only one of them could be read. It belongs to Rosa Belle Bouldin, who lived here and was married to a man named Ed who was a crate maker. (Maybe oranges?) I wished I could read the other stone to see if it was her husband, but even a look on Find-A-Grave didn’t help. According to the Florida Genealogical Society there are 11 Civil War veterans interred here.

These two cemeteries could not be more different, but they are both worth a visit for any tapophile. Of the two, Maitland was my favorite, even though while I was there I grazed a stinging nettle. My feet were throbbing after visiting both of these places.

On the way home I got an ice cream cone to take my mind off the nettles and burrs, and then put my feet into cold water when I got to the house.

I need to take my own advice and wear boots or stay on the path.