Posted on 10/11/2004 6:36:53 AM PDT by Constitution Day
Ping.
Probably it's a middle age thing, but I've been getting into reading old tombstones to see what I can discern about the person's life from them.
Came across a poignant one in Boston from the 1700s -- a ship's captain had a stone made for his chinese bo'sun's mate.
As someone who has tramped through woods and fields looking for lost ancestors, I think this is cool.
Boston has some amazing old cemeteries.
I got interested in cemeteries when I was about 10.
After my grandfather survived throat cancer, he decided to retire from farming.
When a few years had passed, he got bored and took a part-time digging graves for the local funeral home.
I'd always tag along with him in the summer and go look at the tombstones while he was operating the backhoe.
I think my parents found it to be a morbid pastime.
Thanx. As a history buff, I love reading of these findings that tie us to our past.
Thanks for the ping Samwise.
Thumbs up for history and honoring America's military dead.
I know what you mean, I've done the same.
One Confederate ancestor I've never found was in the 56th NC.
I think he might be in our family cemetery under one of the many field stones, but I'll never know which one.
Sorry, but I laughed. < |:)~
I hear ya.
I was a "grandpap's boy," too. < |:)~
Another confessed gravestone reader here.
I find it most interesting to read the tombstones in cemeteries. So much of local history is found or can be surmised by reading the stones.
Just Friday I stopped at an old cemetery in my travels. Since I like the Civil War, it was a real find to discover graves of many Civil War veterans from NJ, some who, through their regimental descriptions, were present at Gettysburg.
But the stone most poignant was a more modern one, from 1945. It was placed by the family of a sailor that perished in the sinking of the USS Drexler.It simply said--"lost at sea".
When I got home, I googled up "USS Drexler" and found that this was a destroyer that was sunk by Japanese kamikaze
planes in 1945. Another reminder of the tremendous cost of freedom.
Speaking as someone who has done genealogy for many years, this is a wonderful find. I have spent many an hour tromping through over growth looking for old family graves.
We visited a couple of cemetaries in PA - an old Church near our home had graves from the 1700's......it was eerie but I liked knowing that here we were, 200-300 years later thinking about that person........
Nobody's moving in and that's a fact.
later.....
How true!! LOL!!
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