Month: May 2018

Requests on Find A Grave

If you’re familiar with Find A Grave and love all things graveyards, it might be fulfilling for you to volunteer by looking up photo requests and submitting them. To do this, you will first need to register on Find-A-Grave, which only takes a couple of minutes. From there, the world of people looking for headstones is all yours for the taking!

People ask me frequently if I make this a practice and the answer is yes and no. Yes, when I’m working in a cemetery that is not fully photographed or abandoned I will check my photos against the data when I get home. Because of this I’ve been able to add several people. But I don’t do it with every cemetery I visit, though it is my goal this year to be more conscious of the fact that there may be requests listed in the cemeteries that I go to.

Requests will be listed on the cemetery main page on Find-A-Grave. When you click on them you will see a list of the requested photos, along with whether or not anyone has claimed them. I find it interesting to look at any problem requests, just to see what others encountered in that cemetery. Usually it is simply that the marker is missing or there never was one to begin with.

When you register Find-A-Grave will periodically send you an email if someone submits a request in your area, and the other day I got one for Corporal Charles Esters, who died in 1967. When I looked him up on the website it said that it had already been claimed, but there were no notes from the claimant and no photos of his headstone, and I decided to go take a look. Washington Park Cemetery is just about 3 miles from my house, and I had nothing going on that afternoon that couldn’t be put off until later. I’d been by the cemetery before but had never been inside, so it seemed like a good way to spend a couple of hours.

This request was detailed in that it listed his section and the plot number. Sections are usually easy to locate in most modern cemeteries, but plots can be difficult. Section C was quite large and on 2 sides of the road, so I started on the right.

Washington Park isn’t unusual in any way, but it is a very modern take on a cemetery. There are no headstones, just flat markers, and almost no shade. It’s hot as hell in there in the middle of the day and I could feel my skin aging the minute I was out of the car. Since there wasn’t a way for me to tell which way the plots ran I just decided to walk up and down the aisles as best I could. Find-A-Grave says that this cemetery is 46% photographed, and I think the reason why the number is so low is because there are a lot of unmarked graves. In the longer stretches with no markers the ground still undulates slightly and has numerous patches of greener grass. This cemetery is also still a very active and busy site. They have a large supply of vaults around the property and new burials toward the back.

I walked for an hour with sweat running down my face and back before I called it a day. Even though I had been in a section of burials from the 1960’s I still didn’t see his marker.  Disappointed, I drove home to nurse my sunburn and drink a gallon of water.

The next night Shawn and I had just finished dinner when he offered to go out there with me again. It had rained and was much cooler, and we figured that maybe with 2 of us searching we might be able to find him. Because it was the night before Mother’s Day there was steady traffic coming in and out, and a lot of families grouped around graves, talking and enjoying the breeze after the recent rain. We headed for Section C, each of us took a different part, and we started walking.

The cemetery has trees and brush to one side and there was an intoxicating smell coming from them. I took a closer look and saw a lot of pink flowers. They smelled amazing! It made me think of the unidentified floral smell in Page Jackson and I wondered if these were in the woods somewhere.

After an hour dusk was looming we decided to leave. The cars coming in had their headlights on now and the cemetery wasn’t gated, but I didn’t think we should be in there for too much longer. As we walked to the car the sky behind us was the color of fire, and the grave lights were coming on in the cemetery, creating little stars of light against the green grass. It was beautiful, and completely transformed from it’s somewhat stark daytime appearance.

The cemetery dates back to at least the early 1930’s. Shawn and I were unable to locate any graves earlier than 1932. The one that I did see was actually a headstone but had been knocked flat to blend in with the rest of the markers, which was a practice I’d never seen at another cemetery. Mowing this place must be a nightmare. Cemetery maintenance does a good job with the upkeep of this place, and is on a very large piece of property.

I was sorry that we didn’t find Mr. Esther’s headstone, and I’ll probably go look one more time and contact the cemetery office if the claimant doesn’t add notes or photos. His one photo on Find A Grave shows him in his uniform looking young, strong, and proud. I love the photo and hope that someone can locate his grave.

Meanwhile, prayers and positive thoughts for my family would be appreciated as we lost one of our own yesterday. My cousin passed away suddenly on his birthday. He was 57 years old. I am still shocked, and hoping to hear more about what happened when I see my family for the funeral this week.

The Ybor City Ghosts

Chris and I planned this night out for weeks ahead of time. I was all excited the day before I was supposed to meet her in Tampa, but I woke up at 2 a.m. the morning of green-faced, sweating, and vividly remembering a horrible nightmare. Some people don’t recall their dreams, but I can recall them years later. I can smell in them. Taste in them. See colors. Talk, control them, or wake myself up if need be. I’ve tried to hone the waking myself up part a lot over the last few years. Sometimes I don’t make it.

This dream was probably due to eating very late the night before and then immediately falling asleep. Despite the natural reasons, I felt unsettled all morning and stayed in bed with a pile of books, a cup of green tea, and a cat. When it was time to leave I was feeling marginally better, and thought I’d be okay to drive over to Tampa.

Chris and I met in L’Unione Italiana but they were closing in ten minutes, so we visited a couple of other cemeteries before deciding to get out of the heat and head over to Burger 21 to meet two of her friends, Michelle and Sue, for dinner and the tour. We devoted an hour to dinner and then drove to Ybor City, which is gorgeous. It’s beautiful in the sunshine, during the sunset, any time of day, really, but it truly comes alive at night. It literally feels like you’re in another place altogether at night. The men sit outside of the cafes in a cloud of grey cigar smoke watching the women walk by, while the women sit in groups of friends drinking wine or coffee and staring back at the men. It’s all fairly polite and restrained.

We met Max, our tour guide, at King Corona Cigars on 7th. When we walked inside to take a look around it was hard to see because of the haze of cigar smoke that hung like a wreath around everyone’s head. When I went home the smell was in my hair and in my clothes, and it thankfully overpowered the pervading smell of sweat and sunburn that I’d carried around all day.

There were 8 of us on the tour, and promptly at 8 o’clock Max appeared, introduced himself, and our two hour walking tour began.

If you’re concerned about walking for two hours don’t be- there were frequent stops and the highest elevation was about 34 feet at the “hill” in Ybor City. It was an easy walk, and the night was cool and comfortable after the heat of the day. When we stopped at one point I looked over my shoulder and saw that the full moon was rising, the Pink Moon. It was so beautiful, sending a faint glow down over the red brick buildings. The moon added so much to the tour for me, but I’ve always been a moon lover.

I won’t tell you everything that the tour covered to leave some mystery, but I will highlight my favorite part, which was the Cuban Club. I thought that the tour would only include stories about the history of various buildings and inhabitants of the city, but we actually got to go in 2 buildings. The Cuban Club (built in 1917) is stunning, and included in it’s heyday a ballroom, a theater, and much to the chagrin of the Italian Club down the street, a swimming pool. When Max unlocked the door I was pretty excited to go in, and when I stepped over the threshold it was to heat and an odd smell, almost like the smell of an old hotel…if that makes any sense. Older carpet, old paint, plaster, that kind of smell. We walked downstairs and when we got to the bottom of the stairs I saw a movement to my right, but I thought that I was looking at a mirrored wall and that I was seeing the reflection of someone in the group. The lights were very dim and around the corner from where we were, so the section we were in had no overhead lights at all. Several people pulled out their phones in order to look around.

A child had died here, he drowned in the swimming pool. The pool had been bricked in and filled with concrete many years earlier, but you could still feel the energy of the water there, and it didn’t feel good or like it had been a happy place. I walked to the side to look at the corner where I saw movement earlier. It wasn’t a mirror, it was an open doorway. I turned away. I don’t know what I saw.

When we walked up the stairs Max told us we could take a quick peek at the theater, which was overwhelming. The ticket booth was white and gold, and the theater itself was 2 storied, with a balcony and a ceiling painted sky blue. The pendant lamps (not on, we were in the dark) were ornate brass and the air was so incredibly still, as though it were breathlessly waiting for people to file in again, laughing and talking as they found their seats. It was magical, and my favorite part of the whole experience. Also, all of my photos from this part have white marks or streaks on them.

We ended the night with a visit to Cheezy’s, which was a pizza joint/speakeasy and had once been a church. It amazed me that while you could tell you were inside a church because of the shape of the windows and the orientation (unless I’m very much mistaken the bar is where the pulpit used to be), you couldn’t feel the weight of all those years of prayer and petition. I loved it. The owner came and spoke to us, and we had a round of Shirley Temples and chocolate milk since we were all driving home and it was late. The bartender had even decorated the glasses with chocolate syrup to make it all look fancy and it was an adorable touch.

I had such a great time on this tour and plan to go again this fall when the renovations for the Cuban Club are complete and there will be more access to the building, but if you get the chance, go.

I’m doing some work on Pinterest now so the blog might have a few minor changes in the near future.

Roselawn Cemetery, Tallahassee, Florida

A computer glitch kept me from my 2 usual posts last month. I just know I’m going to toss this thing in a dumpster one day. Now onto the post…

I don’t know many people that incorporate a cemetery visit into a girl’s weekend trip, but I did. As it turns out, the ladies that I was with had family members buried in Roselawn, and I really wanted to go and visit them. Jennifer’s mom and grandparents were in Roselawn, and Dawn’s mom was there. I remembered Jen’s mom and grandma, and certainly Dawn’s mom, Carol.

Jennifer’s Grandma Ernestine was a sweet woman, and she always believed the best of us, no matter what we did or how terrible it was. It was her husband that owned the enormous Buick Park Avenue that Jen learned to drive in, and that we all rode around in as kids. That thing could literally hold 8 of us comfortably. Even on this trip Jennifer drove; it’s in her blood since she’s literally been doing it since she was WAY under the legal driving (or learning) age. Grandpa had a lot of well-placed faith in her.

Dawn’s mom died suddenly in 2017 and we stopped first to see her. Before the trip we all trudged to Wal Mart to buy new flowers. Dawn’s mom loved hydrangeas, so we were looking specifically for those and thankfully, they had some.

We met Jennifer at Roselawn in front of Dawn’s family plot. Her mom had been cremated and Dawn had purchased a pretty marker for her, and she cleaned this carefully and then dusted the leaves off of the headstones of her other family members. She prepared the flowers, removed the old ones, and then set them up in the owl vase her daughter had chosen for the space. The rest of us loitered around, very conscious of the fact that there was nothing easy about coming out here or doing any of this. Mendy and I sat on a bench talking, enjoying the music from the wind chimes over our heads. It was a windy day and the sound was rich and vibrant on the spring breeze.

Dawn’s mom was funny and kind, and she drove us to school on many rainy or cold mornings, both in middle school and then later on when we went to high school, the same one she had also graduated from. Spending the night at their house mostly felt like home when I was a kid, and she created that feeling.

Afterward we went to see the Warner’s, Jennifer’s family, which were located closer to the back of the cemetery. When we were kids after a long night out we would sometimes drive out here around midnight or later for Jen to talk to her grandfather. This was before the cemetery was gated, before it became home to over 8,000 burials. Most of the time the rest of us would stay in the car while she sat on his grave for a few minutes. We would roll the windows down and listen to the crickets, and look cautiously around at the pitch black night that surrounded us in the big car. For the most part though, I always felt safe. It’s a beautiful place.

This time I placed flowers on Ernestine’s grave and told her that yes, that was Jennifer running down her road in the middle of the night once when we were in high school, and that yes, Jennifer had lied about it when asked. While we were up to no good that night as usual, we weren’t doing anything more serious than staying out too late.

Jen was still mad about the headstone that her brother had picked out for her mom, who was in the next plot. She gestured to it wildly and asked us what the hell we thought of it. (She phrased it just like that, which is why I’ve always liked her.) Here is Cheryl Warner Coker’s epitaph:

We do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest that have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 4-13-14

 

“What the hell is that?” she asked, gesturing again (this time I caught it on camera). We all slumped over, looking a little closer, waiting for the punchline. The truth was, none of us would have picked that for Cheryl’s marker. I think she would have been more suited to a song lyric from the 70’s rather than a long winded and particularly flowery Bible verse. My memories of her included music, cigarettes, and her laughter. Jennifer obviously thought her brother had not chosen appropriately, but there’s nothing to be done about it after all this time, and I still say when people are grieving they’re pretty much out of their minds for awhile. And that’s okay. Maybe that’s why he chose that inscription. At the time, it may have felt perfect.

Or he could have been trying to annoy Jennifer.

I know not many people would meet their girlfriends on a bright Saturday morning in a cemetery, but after being away from Tallahassee for over 20 years without going back, I wanted to see everybody, both alive and dead. We went by all of our old houses and were alarmed at some of the changes, especially Mendy’s, which was abandoned. We went by our old middle school and high school and took pictures. We did all of the things that you do when you come back to a place, all the while layering the present over the past by talking about kids, spouses, and jobs. Reminiscing wasn’t as painful as I’d thought it would be.

I was grateful for that.

I am giving my first talk about a cemetery in Tampa next week, so please quietly cheer me on from wherever you are. I’ll be talking to kids, so I’m pretty excited about that. Can’t wait to hear their questions!