Author: lsmoore

Shy about hanging out in graveyards?

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Here are some common sense guidelines to help you break the ice and indulge your inner taphophile.

1. Ninety-nine percent of cemeteries are closed after dark. However, many have special tours organized at night, especially around Halloween. Watch for those, they’re a blast.

2. Drive and bike through cemeteries slowly, under 15 mph. You’ve got to watch out for the living. Their eyes may be open, but they could be focused on another plane entirely.

3. Yes, it’s okay to walk on the surface above a grave. Unless you’re a professional dancer, hopscotching across acres of graveyard just isn’t practical.

4. Most people come to cemeteries for quiet contemplation.  It’s okay to laugh, cry, have a conversation, among the graves. Just be courteous to other visitors, (alive or dead).

English: «Dia de los muertos» in the indigenou...

5. Picnics, yes or no? In cultures all over the world there are holidays where it’s traditional to picnic on the family plot. Generally, quiet picnics are fine any time of year. If you share a meal with the dead, clean up, take your trash home with you.

6. Listening to music while strolling through a cemetery can be a sublime experience. Just keep your tunes to yourself. Use ear buds or your imagination.

7. It’s okay to touch tombstones, but gently and only with clean hands. Using them for furniture or leap-frog is not okay.
8. Taking rubbings or using shaving cream on hard-to-read tombstones erodes delicate surfaces. Shine a halogen flashlight across the face instead. The shadows, even in the day time will make writing easier to read. I have one with me at all times.
9.  People leave all kinds of tokens on graves. I leave a rock on my mother’s grave every time I visit. Mom liked rocks. It’s okay to look but not to touch. Read a note if it’s left open and exposed, but don’t snoop into a closed envelope.

10. Many lucky dead are planted with peonies, jonquils, and irises. Unless it’s a member of your family, don’t pick the flowers. Unless you’re there as an official volunteer, don’t give in to your inner gardener and pull weeds. You may be denying a loved one a cherished chore.

11. Cemeteries are a weird realm of publicly displayed grief and the promise of privacy. Take all the pictures you want as long as the only living souls in them are the ones you brought along. Never take pictures of strangers. Leave the area if there’s a funeral going on.

12. Volunteer! If you really want to get your fingers dirty, find out if your favorite cemetery has a restoration or care-giving group.  Often volunteers are the only way the oldest cemeteries are maintained at all.

It’s common sense and common courtesy really. Be respectful of the living and the dead.

Atchison, Kansas

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Atchison, Kansas, hometown of Amelia Earhart, sits so close to the mighty Missouri river that you can walk down Main street and dip your toe in.

Floods have come close to wiping out the town several times, but Amelia’s house remains safe, high on the bluffs overlooking the river. 

I spent a long afternoon exploring Mount Vernon cemetery in Atchison a few weeks ago.

There are several gems like little Ned Rigg. I couldn’t make out what he’s writing. Hopefully, not homework for all eternity. 

The empty child-sized chair had cast off clothes and toys carved on the front, “Jimmie’s” things. 

There were several intriguing epitaphs, even a Shakespearean quote.

Have you ever seen stones autographed by the deceased? There were several in Mount Vernon.There were MANY more interesting graves I’m not posting. Mt. Vernon’s definitely worth a visit. It’s a few miles outside of town, near the Amelia Earhart Earthworks.

Graveyard Wildlife

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I love all the wildlife that thrives in cemeteries.

Bird songs, bees buzzing, small creatures scuttling among the stones  – life.

Nature going about its business helps set that peaceful mood most cemeteries have.

How could a place with so much wildlife be creepy?

Hiawatha, Kansas

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To say that the Davis memorial in Mount Hope Cemetery is off the beaten path doesn’t quite do its location justice.

Hiawatha, Kansas is in the heart of America’s farm country. Gorgeous, but remote.

John and Sarah Davis’s strange memorial was worth the drive. I’ve never seen anything like it. Thirteen marble statues plus urns, marble walls and roof depict every stage of the couple’s fifty year marriage.

John commissioned the work in 1930 when Sarah died. Sculptors in Carrara, Italy carved the stones until 1940.

According to legend, the townsfolk were pretty miffed that John would spend that kind of money, nearly all his family fortune, when times were so hard. 1930 was the middle of the Great Depression, but he had a point to make.

Sarah’s family hadn’t approved of their marriage. The couple was childless and John had no intention of his wife’s relatives getting a penny when he passed away.

The story makes sense. There’s waaaaay too much marble squashed onto one little burial plot. It looks like John kept trying to find more ways to spend away his money. That marble roof must weigh 50 tons! And it’s a b*#!@ to photograph!  Somebody with a better camera than mine needs to make the trek to Hiawatha and do this monument justice.

To me, the site ends up being not only a monument to a man who loved his wife, but to human foibles as well.

We live everywhere and die everywhere.

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I was driving around Leawood, Kansas, kind of lost, I’ll admit.

I stopped at a big, fancy grocery store for the salad bar and directions. In the middle of the parking lot, like an oasis in a sea of asphalt, was this tiny cemetery.

Once through the gate, traffic noise seemed to fade even with suburban jungle all around. I’d stepped back in time.

Two young men’s graves told me how far back.

When I closed my eyes, I could picture the cool, peaceful spot these pioneers must have chosen. A small stand of trees in the wide open prairie.

Not in their wildest dreams could they have imagined what it would be like here a century later.

The whole place looked neglected. I wondered if anybody still mowed in the summer.

There’s a history of volunteer maintenance at the Linwood Pioneer Cemetery, at least until recently.

This sign was posted on the gate.

Does anybody reading this live near 95th Street and Mission Road in Leawood, Kansas?  What’s the end of this story?