BACKGROUND CHANGE

I decided to change the backgrounds here and at West in New England
to reflect the change of seasons since Fall and Winter are long past. So
here's the new background for the Summer. It's a shot I recently took at
Mt Vernon Cemetery. I'm not sure why it looks so painted as compared
to the actual photo but I like the look!

THE PLAN

Today was my usual Thursday off and after running some errands I drove
over to Mt Vernon Cemetery. My plan is to photograph every headstone,
monument and grave marker.It's a big cemetery. So you'll forgive me when
I say it's going to be a monumental task.

I spent part of my visit trying to map out all the roads in the place, Some of
them are named and have "street signs". Others are grass covered and run
down the middle of some of the areas between the paved  roads. So far
I've taken pictures of the sites near South Grove and Vernon Ave and one side
of the first section of Central Ave. Central is the main road that runs throughout
Mt Vernon. I'll post some of the pictures here of course and the older graves
I'll post to Find A Grave. I have some reservations about posting gravestones
from more recent graves but that's a subject for another post.

Meanwhile, here's a photo I took today of a monument I'd shot from a distance
during the winter.

There's a brick base to the urn with an attached nameplate that simply reads
"Wm. F, Barlow Jr."  There are no other markers around the urn and so far I
haven't found anything else about him. It's the only monument of its type in
Mt Vernon and whatever plant once graced the top is long dead.One day I
hope to solve the mystery of who Mr. Barlow was!

MALLARDS, SMOOCHERS, AND MISCREANTS

As I've noted before, Mt. Vernon Cemetery has some areas off the
main access roads and I'm only now able to explore these since the
snow has finally melted. So today on my way to the grocery store
I swung through the cemetery with the idea of visiting one of those
spots and getting some pictures.

 
The area I visited is down below the Center Ave area and contains
some massive trees and graves arranged on three small hills. I
hadn't realized before that there was a small pond concealed by
bushes and a larger one beyond that borders the Frolio School
on the other side. There's several smaller roads running alongside
all three hills and I parked at the intersection of three of them.

As I got out of my car I noticed there were two teenagers in hoodies
down the path on the driver's side of the car.  They glanced back up
the road at me for a second, then one shrugged and passed the joint
they were sharing back to his or her companion.

Well, I decided to take the path in front of my car. I walked a few yards
down and found a pair of mallard ducks in the concealed pond, so I
took their picture. Then I noticed the plot behind me had a rather
elaborate stone wall around it and took a picture of that. But a few yards
down the road I realized there was a car that had been hidden from
view from Center Ave and a young man and woman were engaged in
umm...a little afternoon delight.

I retreated back to my car and went around to the path on the passenger
side which skirted the backside of the small pond. I took a few more
pictures, including one of a family plot that appears to have never been used.
I wondered what had caused that before taking a few more pictures.,

It was at this point I realized that perfhaps the miscreants (the tokers) or the
smoochers might take exception to having someone hanging around taking
pictures and walked back to my car and drove away.

It was only later that I realized that the pair that could have really needed
more privacy were the poor mallards, who at this rate may never start
a family!

THORNS, TREES, & TRAINS

Last Thursday I did my usual routine which now includes a drive through
Mt Vernon Cemetery. While it's a big place it's not huge and there are
areas off the main ones that I'm looking forward to exploring in the
coming weeks. One of them is the hill just across from the Henry
Dunham plot.It overlooks the pond from the other side and the
railroad tracks run by the chainlink fence at the top.

All Winter long I've driven by a small plot at it's left lower corner that was
visible from the road but was unreachable because of the heavy snow. There
are four stones bordering a small extension of the pond and partially entangled
by a large thorn bush. I became curious about it and now that the snow had
melted I took the opportunity to walk in to take some pictures. But when
I did I found myself frustrated. The inscriptions on the gravestones were
facing out towards the road, and they were covered by that impenetrable
tangle of thorns. So for the moment I still don't know the names of those
buried there.

I walked about a bit more heading up the hill as the train went by in time
for me to take a picture. I'd just about reached the fence when I found
a toppled headstone which, when I looked closer, turned out to belong
to another of my Dunham cousins. I took a picture, then noticed there
were three empty stone bases next to it. Were the missing gravestones
victims of vandalism or had harsh New England winters knocked them
over? Charles A Dunham's headstone was nearly covered by dirt and
grass; were his family's markers covered completely? 

I'll check the area out more closely the next time I'm there. And there
be another way to know who was buried there, but I'll blog about that
when I find out for sure.

 

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.