Cemeteries, Graveyards, Burying Grounds, & Churchyards
TILE helps me keep track of my keys when I misplace them in a cemetery.
While I am adept at finding lost cemeteries, I’m not always so skilled at finding my keys in a cemetery.
On more than one occasion, I’ve left my keys behind on a gravestone before wandering off to explore other areas of the cemetery.
TILE is a handy tool that helps me keep track of my keys (and my cell phone).
Fernhill Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Stuart, Florida offers tropical bauble filled trees, glinting sunbeams, and finely manicured lawns.
is blazing hot in the middle of summertime but the cooler months are completely bearable with warm breezes and glistening beams of sunshine. Palm and other tropical trees grow in the fertile soil and St. Augustine Grass makes for a soft cushion underfoot.
It was one particular warm day and one particular sunbeam that cause my attention last July when I strolled the grounds of Fernhill Memorial Gardens. I love when relatives make their family plots places of celebration. This particular plot is adorned with hanging baubles catching sunlight making a visit to this cemetery less sad.
Lebanon In The Fork Presbyterian Cemetery overlooks the muddy headwaters of the Tennessee River.
Near the confluence of the Holston River and French Broad River a church burned down in 1981. Its bell and columns were saved but, other than those items, the most enduring visual reminder of the Lebanon Presbyterian church are the tombstones of the old church cemetery.
There is a quarry nearby. Tread carefully along the well-worn footpath toward the rear of the cemetery.
I found one cemetery in John O’ Groats, Scotland.
It was a typical angst ridden summer. I’d recently graduated college where I’d spent my senior year working in a bank loan office. After graduation, I spent two months hitchhiking and riding trains throughout the British Isles on a BritRail Pass. I stayed with relatives in Liverpool for most of summer vacation but when I outstayed my welcome I would hop on a train and visit the countryside. One week, I traveled as far north as the train tracks took me and spent several nights in a Youth Hostel in John O’ Groats, Scotland. Travelling the rails and meeting other recent graduates who were trying to find themselves filled me with a desire to never stop traveling and exploring the world.
I found one cemetery in John O’ Groats, Scotland. Though I have dozens of pictures of the Youth Hostel and the countryside, I only have one picture of one gravestone.
It was a beautiful summer and I hope to get back to John O’ Groats someday soon to further explore the cemeteries there.
As a cemetery enthusiast, I am always excited to find Zinc Monuments.
As a cemetery enthusiast, I am always excited to find Zinc Monuments. My casual tour of St. Paul’s Cemetery turned into excitement as I found a zinc marker.
Zinc Monuments are fairly common in United States’ Cemeteries. However, I did not expect to find a zinc monument on Bermuda. Zinc monuments were sold by the Monumental Bronze Company between 1875 and 1912. They were sold under the name of White Bronze as a marketing gimmick to make them more appealing than using the word “zinc.”
I always love finding Zinc grave markers in cemeteries. To the trained eye, they are easy to spot. It’s fun “showing off” to people interested in cemeteries. “See that grave stone? If I rap it with my knuckles, it will ring out like metal.” And when they realize it’s hollow, they love exploring the inscriptions and removable panels (never remove a panel unless you have permission of the owner. Here’s a short video I made of zinc markers in the snow:
Beck Knob Cemetery – local construction crews discover a long forgotten cemetery forcing bulldozer operators to halt their work.
Beck Knob Cemetery
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Local construction crews halt work after discovering grave plots within their work area.
It’s funny how a simple newscast can change the course of your day. After exiting the post office and returning to my car, I flipped on the local talk radio station to hear the local news. 10 seconds later and I would have missed this news blurb completely. However, Kevin West dropped a hint that a local construction crew discovered a long forgotten cemetery forcing bulldozer operators to halt their work.
I have visited Beck Cemetery many times but I wasn’t familiar with Beck Knob Cemetery. Using a GPS Cemetery Data-Set downloaded into my Garmin, I discovered the cemetery was a quick 5 minute drive from my location. I popped over to survey the cemetery and chat with the construction crew. Instead of workers, I found a news team busily filing their report. They seemed amused when they realized I study cemeteries. Within seconds they asked for (and received) my permission to be interviewed for their evening newscast.
Without proper planning, I felt unprepared to give an interview but the professional reporter lead me through the process fairly pain-free.
Beck Knob Cemetery is a family burying ground dating from the late 1800’s to the early 1940’s. The land was donated by a local land owner when he saw a need for burial plots for former slaves and their families. The ground has been maintained over the decades since the 1940’s but recently fell into neglect. Anyone who lives in the Chattanooga area knows Kudzu, which was brought into the area in the 1800’s to curb erosion of our steep hillsides, quickly overtakes plats of land. Kudzu has completely overgrown Beck Knob in recent years obscuring the cemetery from the construction crew’s visual inspections. By all accounts, the construction crews seem to be acting reasonably in their protection of the cemetery.
Though the cemetery is well known by residents of the area, I feel sure recent news coverage of the cemetery will prompt surrounding land owners to re-familiarize themselves with the cemetery’s boundaries.
Price Chapel Cemetery (Cemetary) is defined by an overwhemlingly striking tree which greets (almost ominously so) visitors to this small cemetery located between Cleveland Tennessee and Chattanooga Tennessee.
Many cemeteries we visit are defined by a single tombstone. A large obelisk, ornate carving on a single granite monolith, or a magnificient white bronze erection often is the defining feature in a cemetery and makes us say “This tombstone defines the cemetery.”
However, Price Chapel Cemetery (Cemetary) is defined by an overwhemlingly striking tree which greets (almost ominously so) visitors to this small cemetery located between Cleveland Tennessee and Chattanooga Tennessee.
Markers date back to the mid 1800’s to a time in Bradley County when the coming Civil War was not even a rumor. Unfortunately, progress is never ceasing and the area immediately surrounding Price Chapel is becoming overrun with car dealers and movie theaters.
Vista Memory Gardens cemetery is on Cemetery Road at the end of Dale Street off Route 85 outside of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.
I remember attending a grave stone conference one year where one major point of interest was methods of reducing graffiti and vandalism in cemeteries. One participant in the discussion offered a very clever solution. “Put up a sign warning of Rattlesnakes” he said. There was a collective gasp and a round of laughter as everyone understood the effects such a sign would have on misguided visitors. After all, no misguided visitor wants to be surrounded by rattlesnakes in a cemetery at night.
“WARNING: THIS IS A KNOWN RATTLESNAKE AREA” The sign’s worn lettering speaks of a hot desert sun baking everything in its uninterrupted midday rays. Contrasted to a brilliantly colored yet harsh desert backdrop the sign’s significance is not lent to one erected as a simple ploy to keep ne’re-do-well scoundrels at bay. This sign meant what it said and I took its words to heart. Well, actually, I took them as a challenge of excited expectation as I tried my best to find a Rattlesnake within the confines of the cemetery. I would have loved to see a Rattlesnake sprawled out atop a gravemarker in the mid afternoon sunshine.
Vista Memory Gardens cemetery is on Cemetery Road at the end of Dale Street off Route 85 outside of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. As can be expected, the cemetery is surrounded by dusty dry landscape with slight hills to the north which must harbor dozens of rattlers that slither from their burrows to scare unwitting visitors to Vista Memory Gardens.
Caretakers take obvious pride in their work. The grounds are clean and well manicured. Though I love natural and native landscapes in cemeteries, the caretakers have planted sod and keep the grounds well groomed to give an overall pleasing green tone to the cemetery. There are a few trees that give shade to an otherwise barren landscape.
Helm Cemetery – Shaw Mississippi
Helm Cemetery – Shaw Mississippi. If spring warming had caused crop growth to be a few inches higher we would have never seen the cemetery on the horizon. We were driving down Highway 61 on a late April day and I dare say if our trip had been delayed until May we would have completely missed Helm Cemetery.
Like so many cemeteries we pass along the roadside, this Cemetery hides engulfed in a farmer’s field. It is appropriate though since many of these cemeteries are populated with farmers and sharecroppers of old.
We didn’t stay long. The muddy ground made for difficult foot navigation toward and through the cemetery.
Chattanooga Memorial Park Cemetery is a large, sprawling cemetery located within the town of Red Bank, Tennessee.
Name: Chattanooga Memorial Park Cemetery
State: Tennessee
Coordinates: 35 05’39.87N 85 18’07.01W
Chattanooga Memorial Park Cemetery is a large, sprawling cemetery located within the town of Red Bank, Tennessee. Red Bank lies entirely within Hamilton County, Tennessee and immediately adjecent to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Memorial Park is a rolling
Chattanooga Memorial Park Cemetery is one of my first experiments using GPS and Google Earth to map locations of individual grave sites within a cemetery.
I have been experimenting with using my GPS to record individual gravesites and take pictures of the headstones. Using a program called Google Earth I have been able to import the photographs and the GPS coordinates to give a visual representation of the location of each grave site.
This data is saved as a .kml (Keyhole Markup Language) file. To see the .kml file of the Memorial Park Cemetery, please install Google Earth and then download this file. This is an experiment only. Memorial Park Cemetery Map