SUMMIT RD , MT VERNON CEMETERY, ABINGTON

Last Thursday I returned to Mt Vernon Cemetery. By now the heavy
snow cover of this past Winter was gone and luckily the grounds were
fairly dry. So at last I had the chance to get out of the car and wander
about with my camera to take pictures.

Mt Vernon is a sprawling cemetery laid out in roads. One of these
is Summit Rd, which is at the southern entrance and, as the name
suggests, at the highest point of the terrain. It's not paved and wasn't
plowed out at all this Winter so this was the first time I'd been able to
walk up it, although I'd taken many photos of the hillside from my
car the past few months.  Most of the gravesites there are among the 
oldest in the cemetery and there's not only a nice view across the interior
of the cemetery but also of the athletic fields at the nearby junior high
and middle schools: (click twice on each picture for best view)

At the top of the hill. Those pine trees on the right are actually on the ground below the hill. 

A gravestone with a bench to match

The view down onto the athletic field from the bench

I THINK THIS IS WHY I HAVEN'T SEEN A REAL GRAVEYARD RABBIT YET..

A week ago Sunday I was driving through the Mt Vernon Cemetery and
took some pictures of some of the birdhouses people have hung nearby the
graves. I'm not sure but I suspect the reason is because their departed loved
ones might have been birdwatchers:

But as I made my first pass through, I saw a large white bird fly overhead. I knew
immediately it wasn't a seagull. Before I could take a shot of it, a car came down
road from the opposite direction and because of all the snow, it couldn't pass me
easily. So I backed up until I could find a wider spot in the road to pull over and
let the lady pass. By the time she had, I'd lost sight of the bird and whatever
direction it had flown off to,so I drove off to the grocery store to do my food
shopping.

I decided to take a chance on another drive through on  my way home. I was
taking some more pictures from my car when another car came up behind me.
I drove up to a spot overlooking the pond and pulled over to let him pass, and
I looked around,and spotted the bird off in the distance sitting on a tree branch.
Even that far off I could tell he was a big fella. So I took my pictures with the
zoom function of the camera:

I found an online website for raptors of Massachusetts. It turns out it's a red-tailed
hawk. Now I'd never seen this bird at Mt. Vernon Cemetery before. But, as I said
in the title of the post, he might also be the reason I haven't seen any "graveyard
rabbits" bounding about the place, either!

MT VERNON CEMETERY FEBRUARY 10, 2011

I took another swing through Mt. Vernon today. I was hoping to get
some interesting pictures because of the bright sun perhaps causing
more shadows from the tombstones. So I drove through the back entrance
and around on the outer perimeter by the fence near the railroad tracks
stopping the car to take shots here and there:

Now there was one monument that got my attention because of its ornate
detail so I took a few more pictures, including a closeup of the detail and of
the inscription plate:

I drove on through and out of the cemetery, then went and did some laundry.
Later this afternoon I loaded the pictures onto my laptop and then uploaded
them to a new album on Facebook. Tonight I took a closer look at the name
on the inscription: Joseph E. Kimball. I took a quick look at Rootsweb to see
what information I could find on him, because I do have Kimball ancestry from
the Ipswich area of Massachusetts.

And i was, as we geneabloggers say, gobsmacked.

Joseph E Kimball was married to Susan Ford Dunham, daughter of Brigadier
General Henry Dunham, whose family plot I stumbled across a few months
back. And Henry was the brother of Cornelius T Dunham whose plot I discovered
yards away from my parent's burial site last fall. And there were other Dunham
cousins buried at the top of the hill at the other end of the cemetery. I've blogged
about all of this in the "A Family Reunion of Sorts" series on my genealogy blog.
 
But what are the odds that I'd find all of these distant unknown cousins all buried
in the same cemetery with my parents? I've never been all that superstitious, but
suddenly, I'm thinking it was more than luck that led me to all these graves.

DRIFTING THROUGH MT. VERNON

This has been one incredible Winter in the Boston area. We've had
over 70 inches of snow in most areas so far, 80 inches in some places,
and we still have two months to go to Spring. It could well be mid to
late April before the last stubborn snowpiles in parking lots finally
melt away!

Once again today I took a drive through Mt. Vernon Cemetery. Many
of the older, smaller gravestones are completely hidden from view by
drifts and only the tops of newer taller headstones poke through out of
the snow. Not even the taller monuments are immune, snow obscuring
their bases in some cases.

I have come to appreciate the wisdom of only plowing out the road around
the perimeter. With the snow so high, it would be terribly easy for some
of the headstones close to the road to be smashed by the plows or be broken
by the weight of the piled up snowbanks.

So for now, I'll have to contine to be patient.  Spring will come eventually, and
it will be that much more the sweeter for having to endure this Winter first.

BLACK & WHITE

Well, at the risk of being repetitious I took a swing through Mt Vernon
Cemetery again today. But this time I had the digital camera set for
black and white. I didn't quite get the play of sun and shadows I'd
hoped for but this was my first time shooting black and white so I
hope to improve my technique with practice.

MT VERNON CEMETERY IN THE SNOW2

Anytime I go out now on my days off from work I take along my camera.,
so today when it turned out the barbershop was closed on Mondays,I
took a drive through Mt. Venon Cemetery again. The snow is still too
deep and the roads still too icy for me to get out and walk it,and I came
in from the rear exit and drove through to the front entrance to get a
different view from my car window.

I don't know about everyone else, but I can't wait for warmer weather
to  melt all this snow. I want to get back to taking my walks!

IF ONLY I WERE A SNOWSHOE RABBIT!

As you can see from the background photo and from the previous post,
it's been a snowy Winter here in Massachusetts so far. The average
snowfall for an entire Winter in the Boston area is 43 inches. We've
already had 40 inches mostly from the last two storms, followed
by a cold spell which has kept melting to a minimum. So for the
present my graveyard jaunts are on hold.

Here's some pictures I took recently on drive thrus after the storms
at Mt. Vernon Cemetery here in Abington to give you an idea of
how long a wait I might have: