[martin_fierro]

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.

[Constitution Day]

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.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

About the only thing growing in my old home town is the cemetery. The town once had 6500 and is down to less than 400 souls. A cousin recently donated 40 contiguous acres to the cemetery society and that should about do it.

[exit82]

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.

[Tinman93]

I've been working on my family genealogy for many years and find it quite enjoyable. It's a lot like detective work and cemeteries are a usual source of information. Unfortunately, a tombstone makes a poor statement of a persons lifetime and it pains me to think that all the thoughts and experiences of my ancestors are all but forgotten. The journal that I started a few years ago will hopefully solve that for my descendents.

[Tax-chick]

I do that, too. I "did" a cemetery at a local Methodist church just a couple of weeks ago, while I was waiting for an appointment with the pastor.

At another Methodist cemetery I visited last summer, there was a monument to a former pastor who had "Prayed for an earthquake during revival on (date) ... and it was answered!"