Enterprise Cemetery was established in 1841, and I have a picture of the sign to prove it. It was a gloomy day with a heavy sky, and all of my photos that day looked gloomy and colorless so I switched them all to black and white for this post. It adds drama. That’s what I’m telling myself.

This cemetery is pretty bleak with lots of open space and dead grass, but it had some unique things that made it an interesting one to visit. First, I was freezing to death that day because I’m a Florida native and the surprising high last Sunday was about 48 degrees. I don’t really understand how to bundle up because I never really have to, so I was not dressed warmly enough for a trek outdoors- but I got out of the car anyway and Shawn and I walked in through the side gate. One side of the cemetery is clearly active, and one side is the more historic side, though you can see a small, older plot over to the far left which is all the way in the back. We started there, and I began to realize what made this cemetery different from the others I’ve visited.

Most people place statues of angels on graves. It’s what they do. It’s nice to imagine an angel watching over your loved one in the hereafter, but I don’t think this notion really caught on with the people of Enterprise (population just over 43,000 in 2012), and that is what made me love this cemetery. These people got creative with their grave tributes- no angels for them! Here is a short list of some of the things we saw on the graves there:

-A statue of a green bullfrog wearing a top hat.

-A bigmouth bass statue.

-A larger than life statue of a blue macaw.

-2 tee shirts rolled up on graves.

-2 guitars on one grave- an acoustic one that had been beaten to death and an electric one parked against the tree alongside the grave.

While these gifts are festive and make for an interesting walk through the cemetery, this cemetery is actually the final resting place for some of the victims of the 1888 Yellow Fever outbreak in Volusia County. (Many other nearby counties were affected as well including Orange and Duval.) I found one chilling telegram dated October 26, 1888 saying that there were 2 deaths and 12 cases so far, and that armed men were surrounding infected areas to prevent further transmission of the disease, which is actually spread by mosquitoes. While digging around I also found a letter from September of the same year to the Governor of Florida from several different county health boards begging for help. There is a lot of desperation in that letter, found on floridamemory.com.

The grave of Annie Bradley is dated from the same date of the telegram, which means she was most likely one of the two deaths referenced. The older section has a large fenced area with a grand monument for W.H. Cavin, with a death date of October 27, 1888, so it seems that they could possibly be a victim as well. (I wasn’t able to find out if Cavin was male or female, but I’m thinking they were male.)

Near Annie Bradley’s headstone is the resting place of W.D. Moore, who is said to be the first marked burial in the cemetery with a death date of January 15, 1882.

In the same section of the cemetery you will also see a small plot for children of the Florida United Methodist Children’s home which began in 1908, and a few sad burials. The home was renamed in 1971, so the main stone marking the plot pre-dates that as it simply says Florida Methodist Children’s Home. This children’s home is still operating today and has a fascinating history.

There were also a lot of Osteens here- and so we decided to head to that cemetery next. See you next week!