The Neighborhood Bone-Yard

[Ellen_Cherry]

Here in Kentucky in the Maplewood Cemetery, we have the Wooldridge Monuments --The Strange Procession That Never Moves, located in Mayfield, Ky. – Graves County, no less!

The 18-figure group was erected in the late 1890’s by Henry G. Wooldridge. He is the only person entombed on the lot. … The other life size statues depict his mother, Keziah, his brothers, Alfred, W.F., John, and Josiah. Also include are his sisters, Susan Neely, Narcissa Berryman, Minerva Nichols, plus his two nieces, Maud Reeds and Minnie Neely.

There are also statues of two dogs!

[dwyr]

Cave Hill, up in Louisville, is a lovely cemetery. The family used to go there quite a bit when I was a kid, mostly to see the ducks and swans. There are some pretty nice monuments too. Famous people currently residing there include Col. Sanders and one of the Hill sisters (writers of that popular little tune called “Happy Birthday”).

[freckafree]

I no longer have a neighborhood bone-yard (or marble orchard, as I grew up with), but there was one in the teeny Western Reserve village in which I resided 8 or so years ago. I walked or ran through it just about every day.

One thing I thought was really cool was seeing the family names on the markers that I had come to know as names of roads and buildings, etc.

The other thing, that was not so cool but moving and sobering, was knowing where the new section was. In the thirteen years that I lived there, there were a number of people I knew whose final resting place was the new section.

[Batsinma_Belfry]

@Tuckerfan

There was this enormous square base and out of the top of it were two massive hands, holding an even larger rough hewn sphere. On the block was carved, “He’s got the whole world in His hands.” Rather bizarre.

Atleast it wasn’t a giant phone, with the inscription “Jesus Called”.

Originally Posted by Slithy Tove But that’s not weird. Weird was when I was a hospice worker and one family whose toddler had died didn’t want the showing in a casket. They wanted him sitting in his high chair.

My uncle was propped up in his favorite recliner. I missed the festivities, but according to my mom, he began the evening in the casket. Then somebody fetched the recliner, (they lived down the road from the funeral home.) Then everybody took turns posing for pictures with Uncle “B”.
Back to the OP…

My family church was built in 1850, between the base of a small hill and a creek. The cemetary began 5’ from the side of the church and as of 5 years ago (mom’s funeral), continues up the hill. Most of the older gravestones are nothing more than markers imbedded in the ground, inscribed with the basic info. It wasn’t until 1974, that they decided to add a couple of meeting rooms and indoor plumbing. Before that, church functions were held amongst the dead, and body functions were held until you got home, unless you were brave/desperate enough to use the 120 year old outhouse located in the woods that bordered the creek.