USA – Eastern

Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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Emergence

Challenging to carve something as ethereal and smokey as a soul in stone.

Laurel Hill was brimming with awesome sculptures!

Lion

What a majestic guy! Anatomically correct too. Quite the symbol of power.

Freed from prison

Here’s a story, broken chains, open prison door, sobbing woman freed. Pretty impressive. The man memorialized abolished debtors prisons in Philly.

Little lost lamb

Emotion in the stone, that’s what it’s all about.

Laurel Hill, Philly

 

Laurel Hill, Philadelphia, PA

There’s more to see at Laurel Hills. I’ve got to go back. And I MUST have another philly cheesesteak sandwich. It’s absolutely true that nobody makes them like they do in Philadelphia!

Funerary Urns as Fine Art in North Carolina

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Urn Art and Garden Faire at Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina

Urn Art and Garden Faire at Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina

Okay, who wouldn’t want to spend eternity in a “Party Jar?” That’s what artist Julie Moore titled her whimsically woven cremation urn in Oakwood Cemetery’s juried art urn competition in April. There were ninety entries, everything from elegantly traditional wood carvings to uniquely personal mosaics.

Oakwood livened up the show with Civil War reenactors, cemetery tours and food trucks. And a little weather couldn’t keep the taphophiles down! Despite heavy rain, hundreds turned out.

Personally, I think the rain made this beautiful, old cemetery even more dramatic.

Oakwood, Raleigh, North Carolina

I went home fairly soggy, but loved every minute of it.

Lovely grouping

I’d never seen a marker adorned like this one.  Does anyone know who draped this particular soldier’s tombstone and why?

Civil War Tombstone

Pleasant Little Cemetery in Pennsylvania

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Waterford Union of Churches Cemetery, PA

Waterford Union of Churches Cemetery, PA

I’m not sure what gave this little cemetery such a northeastern feel.

Waterford, Pennsylvania Cemetery

 

Its age and civility were factors, the split-rail fence, the simplicity of the stones.

Waterford, Pennsylvania

I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. But with the scent of fall in the air and the quiet countryside all around, this one was a pleasure to visit. It’s a bit hard to find, but anyone in town can direct you there.

 

 

Not sure what this is. Any guesses?

Not sure what this is. Any guesses?

 

 

 

Christmas Eve, Nashville, TN

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Twilight at the City Cemetery in Nashville, Tennessee

Is it weird to seek out a quiet hour on Christmas Eve and find myself in a cemetery? I can see some of you nodding. “Yes, Laura, it is kind of odd.”  I’ve got to admit that when I got in the car and left my family – not in a huff, my family’s great – with Google map in hand, to drive to a part of Nashville I’d never seen,(after twenty years of visiting for the holidays), I wondered a little myself.

But when I found the City Cemetery and got out to walk around, that familiar sense of peace settled over me and I knew that at least for an hour, I was in exactly the right place.

It’s a beautiful, old cemetery with some really interesting stones. Like this one. Does anybody know the story here? The plaque reads, Ann Rawlin Sanders. She was 21 when she died. No, wife-of or beloved daughter.  It was 1836. It would have been quite a feat to move a boulder this huge. It crossed my mind that the rock is a natural feature of the spot, the tip of the iceberg so to speak. But then how could they bury someone under it?

There were three great angels.

Erosion had washed away details on this last one, leaving rather more to the imagination than the sculptor probably intended.

The second shot shows the outline of a wing better, giving the sense of the angel carrying off the dearly departed much better than the first shot – in which I got the wrong idea all together.

This was an interesting marker. It reads, Thomas B. Coleman, Mayer of Nashville, 1842. Really? The mayor with a misspelled,  plain, wooden plank? There’s got to be a story here too.

It’s a lovely place. I would have stayed longer if it hadn’t been getting so late. Stop by next time you’re driving through Music City.