For Elizabeth McClung!!

This is for her! We traipsed around the graveyard, actually graveyards, for several hours Saturday. We were celebrating her, May, Spring, and just plain having fun. Here is her blog, if you would like to go meet her, trust me, she is some one you want to get to know.
We did not don a corset, or actually anything goth (though I love it, just not anything in my wardrobe that would work), we did have a blast.
I have always loved traipsing around old cemeteries looking at the old graves. Some make me sad, other are just so bizarrely interesting.



Here is an interesting one:

I wonder who thought, "I want mine like a tree trunk, and make sure you hang a few things off a cross"?



Now this is a pretty thing to have as a tombstone. Yet, I really think she could do without the tacky flowers shoved in her arms.


We then went to one waaaaayyyy out in the middle of nothing. You had to take a gravel road that ran along side a river and there it is. As a kid, the local legend surrounding it is this:
It's called locally, 13 graves. Story goes that over a hundred years ago a local man went insane, killed 12 of his family members, then himself (or is it himself??never get that one right). Now, if you stand on the first grave, count it as one, and step on each one you will count 13. Then turn around while still on the last grave, count it as one as before and walk to the end again, and you will only count 12. Since I'm notoriously poor at math, it worked out that way once for me. The rest of the time I counted 13. Here is a picture of the "graves":

Now I have a theory about this. I don't think they are graves at all. I started looking at this picture and came up with something. I think they are just the entrance to the graveyard. There are graves dating back to the 1820's there. These "graves" are actually too short to really be adult graves, I think they are basically cobblestones. That way a wagon could pull into the cemetery to deliver the dead, without really sinking in the mucky mud. So, does anyone else see this? If you look at the first one, to the left looks like there used to be a post sunk there. Perhaps a hitching post?? Hmmmmmm. I suppose I could find something from the local history, but Nah...I'm going with me theory.


There were several like this with a hand carved on the phallic-like style with the index finger pointing to heaven. I want one of those hands on my headstone too...only, I want an entirely different finger pointing up.



This is a very, very old cemetery. I'm sure the only reason it is mowed at this time of year was because it just also happens to be Memorial Weekend in the states, when people honor their dead. I saw this one and thought "And we all fall down!" (ya know..ring around the rosie??..oh never mind)




This one I just can't explain. I don't know if it was set this way, or someone did this to it, but it is pretty well stuck that way and has been for a while. The weather has removed all the writing. You know, I like it's wonkiness. I think I would like one like this for me, with the finger carving too.



This one is sad. It's long fallen over, and I know that water will soon remove it's epitaph. It's a babies headstone that died in 1869, 100 years before I was born. It says:
"Sleep my sweet baby
and take thy rest
God calls away
when he thinks best"
Sad isn't' it? I guess I knew it would be gone within a few more years and wanted to document it somehow.



I liked this one the very best. I like how even the vine draping it is starting to die.




Then there is this one. It's a 1 day old baby's grave. There is the headstone to the left, the foot-stone to the right, it's surrounded by a concrete border, which is one of the few in the lot with the border around the grave, and there there is that odd ball/globe shape in the center.

I have no idea what it is. Monkey Boy tried brushing it off, but it just chipped away, so he stopped. It is definitely attached to the top of the original stone top. I'm not sure why it is so long either for such a tiny occupant.
Does anyone have any idea's what it is or seen anything similar?





In honor or Memorial Day, here is a civil war soldiers grave. It was the only one in this graveyard with any type of flower on it. I imagine the American Legion came out and put the flowers and flag on it.

And here is the scariest thing we found in the graveyard:


Now check out that headstone. It's a pile of wood!!! It's over 7 foot tall, and I got a kid hiding back there with me! Who thinks "Yeah, a pile of wood, that's what we want"?


Here's to you Elizabeth!!! I hope you are feeling much better soon!