Grave Marker
Covenanter Cemetery, Bloomington, Indiana
This is similar to the last one. One thing worth mentioning is that the sky was a nice, solid grey color. I don’t think I would have liked this photo if the sky had been blue. That’s partly because the sunlight would have washed out the color in the stone, but also because the mid-day sky directly overhead is usually an anemic sort of blue.
Angel
Covenanter Cemetery, Bloomington, Indiana
This was one of those “switch everything to auto, set the camera on the ground, and hope for the best” photos. It took 10-15 shots before I got something halfway useful.
Charley Harden, Indiana PVT 70 FIELD ARTY, JANUARY 9, [1930?]
GOODMAN
John J Lawrence 1840-1935, Union Veteran Civil War
Skirvin, Tilford L., Sept. 22, 1850 – Jun. 24, 1913
Mary M., Oct. 14, 1853 – Dec. 23, 1929
Grave Marker with Red Lichen (Caloplaca)
Clara, Mount Gilead Cemetery, Bloomington, Monroe County, Indiana
There are actually three graves here, but the stones are worn smooth. The only identifying mark is the name Clara, on the center stone. It’s etched deeply, as if it had been re-carved at some point. The graves are clearly old, but someone still keeps it decorated with plastic flowers and tchotchkes.
There’s a new grave, just a few feet from Clara’s. It wasn’t there the last time I visited the cemetery. A young man is buried there, and the grave is packed with flowers and mementos. It’s interesting to see new graves jumbled in with the old ones.
Another weird thing about this cemetery–there are new stones in the old section, right next to the dry stone wall. A couple of them are facing the wall, with only a few inches of empty space between them. The old church is directly on the other side of the wall, so there’s not a good way to look at those backward headstones. Why on earth would they be placed facing out like that?
Angel Grave Decoration, Mount Gilead Cemetery, Bloomington, Monroe County, Indiana
This, and several other decorations and flower arrangements, were sitting on the back sides of their headstones. I think that’s a little odd, but there must be a reason for doing so.
Mount Gilead Cemetery, Bloomington, Monroe County, Indiana
It was supposed to rain today, but the weather ended up being gorgeous. Highs in the 50s and only partially cloudy. Since I’ve been a little cabin fevery, I decided to run out to Mount Gilead and take some more photos. Besides, I haven’t really had a chance to play out-of-doors with my new camera.
Altogether, I took about 60 photos, and only a few were real duds. I’m well pleased! This one, of a lone, plastic (not even silk!) daisy near a plain, little headstone, is one of my favorites. This graveyard was established in 1845, so it’s not all that old, but some of the oldest stones–like this one–have already been worn smooth.
Mount Gilead Cemetery, Bloomington, Indiana
I took this last September, but I ran out of room on my memory card, so it was stuck on my camera’s internal memory. I finally found the USB cord for my camera last night and was able to download a bunch of old images. I’ve cropped and done a little minor Photoshopping. You can see the original here.
Come Ye Blessed
Grace Rutherford
Died Mar. 19, 1901
Aged 24Y 11M 4D
Elmo Son of
J. R. & G. Rutherford
Died Jul. 26, 1901
Aged 4M 13D
I wend back to the Mount Gilead cemetery earlier this week, intending to take another look at what appeared to be a veteran’s headstone. I got sidetracked looking at infants’ and women’s graves, though. This one caught my eye. It wasn’t until I got home and did the math that I realized that Grace died not in childbirth, as I’d assumed, but six days afterward. Her son, Elmo, lived for four and a half months. I assume Grace’s death was related to giving birth. I wonder what killed her son? Disease or malnutrition?
Something else that caught my attention is the lay-out of the graves in the cemetery. Most of them are in orderly rows, but in the older section, there are doubled rows, where the headstones are either stacked one in front of the other, or staggered slightly. There are also half rows of children’s and infants’ graves, which I thought was clever. The first row of graves is right up against the dry stone wall, with at least one headstone facing the wall. I have no idea whose grave it is, because there isn’t enough space between the stone and the wall to see the inscription.
Thompson
Silas E.
1866-1949
Mary A.
1871-
Where the heck is Mary?!
The rest of my Mount Gilead photos are here. I did a little Googling, and it appears that the church was founded by a member of the Skirvin family, which would explain the plethora of Skirvins buried there. Supposedly they are linked in some way to Hoagy Carmichael.
Flag Holder, Mount Gilead Cemetery
I mentioned the sort of baffling discussion about grave site offerings and “art.” Well, here are two less extreme examples from the cemetery near my house. The first is pretty straightforward, and not something that most people would think twice about. The headstone beside it bears a “veteran of war” emblem, so a rampant eagle standing atop a pile of cannonballs makes perfect sense.
The second is a little more perplexing. First, it’s one of those tacky push-in-the-ground garden decorations. Of a frog. Frogs are usually associated with fertility, not death. Second, it’s right next to a small headstone that is so old that the inscription is completely worn away. Perhaps the person who put it there knows about or is in some way connected to the occupant?
I think it’s very sweet and just a little bit bizarre. It makes a delightful, whimsical change from the usual plastic flowers.
Grave Decoration, Mount Gilead Cemetery
Mount Gilead Cemetery
Just a couple of random thoughts that went through my head as I was driving back from cat sitting this morning.
On grave site offerings: There is a discussion in one of the cemetery groups on Flickr, about the tradition of leaving tokens at grave sites. Some of the responses–critical of the practice–were mind boggling in their ignorance and intolerance. The act of leaving small items at grave sites is as old as humankind. There are likely many reasons why people feel compelled to do so, the most obvious to me being the desire to show that the deceased has not been forgotten. When you leave a token–a stone or a coin or a small memento–whether or not you actually knew the person in their lifetime, you are connecting with them. You are saying that you care, and that it mattered that they existed. That’s a pretty basic human need, I think.
You are also connecting with the living who visit the grave. “I was here, and I want you to know that I have not forgotten your loved one.”
On headstone inscriptions: I know it’s tempting to do tracings or rubbings of marker inscriptions, but old stones are fragile. Just touching them can cause damage the stones. And, with very old stones, rubbings won’t do you any good, anyway.
Just as damaging are chalks applied to the stone, in order to increase visual contrast for photographs. Please don’t do that!
Photography is harmless and may actually give you a better chance to retrieve “lost” information from headstones than just looking at them and transcribing them in situ. I have found that inscriptions that were worn to illegibility became readable when I Photoshopped the pictures I took. It may require temporarily darkening or lightening or increasing the contrast, but the results are pretty amazing.
The inscription below is one of the ones I was unable to make out at the grave site. When I got home and started Photoshopping the close-up I’d taken, I was able to piece together the text. And I didn’t have to touch the stone in any way to do so.
Grave Marker, Mount Gilead Cemetery
Beneath this willow weep
a child, a lovely sister sleeps
We know that she is happy
With her angel plumage on
But our hearts are very desolate
When we think that she is gone
red paper boat 