Cemetery

Cemeteries are places of mourning and also elation over genealogy discoveries. Too often when searching my ancestors’ graves, I find cemeteries that have been abandoned. My great grandfather, Charles Shoemaker Moore was a Civil War veteran and is buried in Old Camden, NJ cemetery. It is in a run down and dangerous part of town. Only a few headstones remain and sadly not one for my ancestor. I know the general area where he is buried. My husband said if we came there again it would be on the coldest day in the winter because most of the criminals would not be out. My grandparents, Margaretta and Charles Moore and three of their children are buried in another Camden cemetery – New Camden Cemetery. This is almost as bad. But just across the street is still another abandoned cemetery. Evergreen Cemetery is disgraceful. Broken headstones abound. The former owners used pieces of headstones to make curbs alone the roads which did nothing to prevent the roads from migrating over graves. I can’t locate my father’s siblings grave as I think one of these roads is now over that grave. My baby cousins’ grave also can’t be located since head stones in that are gone. He is buried on top of a Civil War soldier who was unrelated.  Apparently, you could sell the space over a family member for burial. Nearby there was a headstone that told the story of a couple who were visiting from Germany and were hit by a train. Sometimes the city or county will bring in prisoners to cut the grass in these cemeteries a couple times a year.

Many of my maternal ancestors are buried in and around Batavia, NY. Those cemeteries are lovely. They have been maintained. One even has a booklet of newspaper obituaries for the people buried in that cemetery. One of the collateral ancestors have three small headstones with a heartbreaking story in that booklet. Parents took their small child to be buried there and when they returned home their second small child had died. A few days after that child was buried a third child died and was buried.

Cemeteries give us a connection to our ancestors. My maternial great grandparents were both cremated and their ashes spread in Tampa Bay. They feel so disconnected. I want to be able to see where they lay and see a headstone.

Sometimes cemeteries give us a connection to non-relatives. Around my parents’ graves are friends and familiar people. Flora Jamieson my seventh-grade teacher and later fellow faculty member and friend; her sister and brother-in-law; Charlie Ritz who was one my father’s fellow police officers are all buried there.

Cemeteries are so much a part of our lives. They give us connections and a sense of who we are.

#52 Ancestors 2018, #52 Ancestors, #Cemeteries