I was thumbing through an old issue of Country Woman magazine (October 2006) that my mom gave me. Low and behold they had a two page spread entitled “History Carved in Stone”. The two pages included pictures of gravestones and cemeteries sent in by readers.
One grave that is pictured from Oakland Cemetery in Sandusky, Ohio shows a headstone for a former teacher that is shaped like an open book with the names of her pupils inscribed on the open “page.” Can you imagine being listed on a non-family member's headstone?
A beautiful shot of a cemetery in Neepawa, Manitoba is included. The caption states that over 2,500 graves are planted with petunias as part of a special grounds care program. I found some minutes from the Neepawa City Council online from 2007 that recorded 5,000 dozen petunias were bought for Riverside Cemetery for this project. For those with ancestors buried in the cemetery, you can search an online database at http://town.neepawa.mb.ca/profile/data.asp. A small picture of a grave covered in petunias can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neepawa,_Manitoba. A history of the cemetery can be found at http://town.neepawa.mb.ca/profile/Cemetery.pdf
I was particularly interested in a picture of two graves from Edmonson County, Kentucky. The caption reads, “For 96 years, they’ve (Hill Grove Church) has been covering graves in their churchyard with moss, bleached mussel shells and flowers…In the early days, folks gathered moss from the woods and collected mussels at the river. The shells were emptied, boiled in lye and scraped until they shone dazzling white.” What an interesting tradition.
Four headstones are shown in the article. Names appearing on those headstones are Minnie and Herman Behrens (Oregon, Illinois); Doris Barnes (Deer Park Cemetery, Carroll County, Maryland); Eliza Moore (Oakland Cemetery, Sandusky, Ohio); and Gene Abel (Marlette, Michigan)
County Woman Magazine has a website at http://www.countrywomanmagazine.com/.
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