Laurel Hill

She died sixty-eight years ago today. I went to the cemetery on Saturday morning and placed a heart upon her grave. I do not know why I feel this connection with her. I never knew her. I only know about her. Some people avoid cemeteries like the plague. I like to walk through cemeteries and the older the cemetery, the better. I guess it is my love of history, and one can learn alot about history just walking through one. It can also be the genealogist in me. God knows, I have walked in hundreds of cemeteries through out this country and in other countries, I visited. Talk to my boys and they will tell you how many cemeteries I took them in just to research, while they were growing up. I wonder if I keep a blog as a hiker may leave crumbs to track oneself back. When I research, I rarely get to read something the person had said. I get to read about where they lived and worked. If this blog exists in the future, it will be those crumbs that track back with one difference. My words will give an inside look at who I am not just where I lived or worked. I have over a thousand posts in draft that will remain in draft until time has passed and I can release them to the public once more.

Cemetery walkers are nothing new. People have been walking in cemeteries for two hundred years, especially during the middle to late 1800's when it was not unusual to pack a picnic basket and go to the cemetery. Laurel Hill is a prime example of such traditions. Folks took a boat up the river, got off, climbed steps from the river into the back of the cemetery across what is now called Kelly Drive. They made a day out of it. Picnic basket in hand, small children in tow and off to their loved one's grave. Death was a natural part of life. Unlike today, where we want to avoid talking about it, let alone see it or even acknowledge it actually occurs. When my grandmother died in 1945, she was laid out in the living room of her parents' home. Her newborn son was placed in his cradle next to her casket with the belief that he would know something of his mother, and she would know something of her child. Family members took turns standing by the casket 24/7 until the day of burial, when the casket was hand carried across the street and walked through the cemetery to the burial plot.

The family had two burial plots at the time in the North Section of the cemetery. Marie was interred in a grave beside her thirteen year old brother who died in 1938. After Marie's death, her father purchased several plots never knowing that later in that year 1945, he would be in one also. Today, there is room for eight with five interred; my grandparents, my great grandparents and a young uncle. My grandmother was the second oldest of sixteen children. Earl who is interred in the family plot was the youngest. He had a twin sister known as Pearl who died at birth.

And to think I once lived across the street in that same house.

My grandmother was 38 years old when she died. My great grandmother (her mother) was 90 years old when she died. My aunt (her sister) lived until 102 years old, so I believe longevity is in the Mervine (great grandmother's maiden name) side. My great great grandfather Alexander Mervine also lived a ripe old age and even outlived three of his four wives producing children well into his late 60's.

And to think I once played in that cemetery as a child.