Day: April 18, 2010

I also went to Splinter Ridge Cemetery yesterday. It’s still in use, so there were some kind of amazing memorials.

Wind chimes and piles of stuffed animals around a baby’s grave and a large memorial for a young woman who died a few years ago. That, too, was decorated with gifts, including a ceramic piggy bank.

The graveyard was dominated by one huge monument. Very fancy, in the shape of an arch with an urn on top. It also featured the clasped hands that typically symbolize marriage in graves of that era.

In contrast, there were numerous graves with no permanent markers. Owen County is poor, and a lot of families there just don’t have money for a headstone.

Today’s cemetery trek involved not just a drive in the country, but a drive in the way deep backwoods country. Pot-holed and patched blacktop gave way to gravel, which gave way to dirt. The scenery was gorgeous, and the weather couldn’t have been nicer. Bright blue sky, a refreshing breeze, and cool enough not to get overheated.

I ended up going to two cemeteries. Mount Moriah Cemetery was the first. It was kind of a let down. There are some old–for the area–graves there, but most of the older markers have been damaged. It looks like someone tried to clean them with something that stained the stone. They’d be good candidates for rubbings. The cemetery is still in use and isn’t in bad shape, but there are several stones that have fallen. Some are buried in the ground. Too many names have completely worn away. There are also a number of plain fieldstone markers.

Shadows

Old Gateposts

Fieldstone markers

Concerete Grave Marker