Hi friends – it’s the long Memorial Day weekend here in the US so I’m out having fun (which I fully acknowledge isn’t at all the point of Memorial Day, but nobody’s going to stand between Americans and their backyard cookouts and mattress sales.)
Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston SC
Memorial Day for me and many others in the U.S. is the quasi-official “start” of summer – the outdoor and community pools open, many public school districts have their last week before the holiday, etc. It’s a big Road Trip weekend, although with gas prices almost double their usual I’m guessing that might put a dent in car travel.
When I was young, Memorial Day was the day we went to the cemetery nearby and put flowers on the graves of all my mother’s people. She’d grown up in Northern Virginia when it was still farmland, which blows my mind, now it’s all built up. Anyway, our house was the last on the street, right next to that cemetery.
As kids (and there were a ton of neighborhood kids during those late baby boom years) we had a tacit agreement with the family that owned the cemetery — we were allowed to roam around and play there as long as we didn’t vandalize anything or annoy people. We kept our side of the bargain and used its 38 acres year-round as our local park. There was a long, gentle sloping hill that hadn’t yet been developed, and it was fantastic sledding in winter. There’d be dozens of people there, whole families, on toboggans and Flexible Flyer sleds or those little plastic one-person saucers.
Since we lived there my entire childhood, nothing about that situation was creepy or weird to me – I love cemeteries. I mean, I don’t want to be wandering there alone by the light of a full moon, but they’re a popular attraction for me on my travels. If there’s one or several nearby, I’m going.
My sister is now on flower duty at the cemetery, since I no longer live nearby. My parents are both buried there, next to my mother’s parents. I talk to my parents all the time, I don’t need to be there, but I admit it’s nice to have a specific place I could go if I wanted. Cemeteries are wildly inefficient and environmentally wasteful, and I feel/think most of us don’t … do that any more? (Get buried in one, although there are also places you can tuck an urn of ashes.) But I’m glad they exist, as historical records and as quiet green spaces in urban and suburban areas.
Do you ever find yourself wandering cemeteries, and not just the famous ones that are de facto tourist attractions at this point? And what’s your personal signifier for “the start of summer”?
Anyway. Here are the roses just outside my bedroom window, right by the easy chair where I spend much of my reading time. I could reach out and touch that Sally Holmes if the screen weren’t there. She’ll bloom until early fall, and until then the window will remain open because the scent is lovely and I can listen to the birds at the feeder.
photos: mine
I like visiting cemeteries. Of course being LA we show movies at ours. At least at Hollywood Forever. Which is kind of perfect when you think about it.
There is a cemetery that is about 10 minute walk from where I live. Anything else requires a car. I don’t drive and a live in a rural area means I don’t get to check out cemeteries all that often. What is fun is to find founding family plots. There is one about a 10 minute drive from where I live. Those things are tiny since it is usually only 2 or maybe 3 families. Go to an old suburban or city cemetery and you can find epidemic sections for things like cholera. My latest YouTube channels to watch is Grave Visitations and Serenity Sue. It’s and Irish couple that go all over Ireland for old and abandoned cemeteries. Good Dead Walks is pretty good as well.
Oh thanks for the youtube tips! What a wealth of tiny cemeteries. And yeah — the number of dead children, or some epidemic, or a war. I feel like as long as we’re respectful, it’s all good.
What a sweet, nostalgic memory of Memorial Day you have. Because we were a military family stationed near neither my dad’s family (Texas) nor my mom’s (Massachusetts), we didn’t spend time visiting the family gravesites. I have been there though for my grandparents’ internment, and it was a lovely, meaningful experience each time. My dad is buried at Arlington which was on another whole level of military pomp and ceremony. The roses outside your window are bursting with blossoms. (My roses are lazy. They give me a few flowers at a time.) How nice that they’re right by a window, too!
Oh, Arlington! That is a BIG deal. BTW that’s where I grew up (Arlington) and it’s Columbia Gardens Cemetery that I’m referencing. This house is a rental and the roses have definitely benefitted from some TLC and judicious pruning from me 😀 I wouldn’t have planted Sally Holmes right there but she’s perfectly happy!
We have a paupers graveyard across the road from us March. The dogs love to wander through it, so do I.
One of our famous explorers Blaxland is buried there because it’s unconsecrated ground and he suicided. The rest of his family is down the road in the posh, historic graveyard.
Those ROSES! Amazing.
Portia xx
Oh, that whole unconsecrated thing makes my eyes roll back in my head, but there you are. I’m glad you go exploring there. And yes, roses do surprisingly well here in the dry as long as they have some supplemental water — none of the mildewy things they are prone to and lots of sun.
I live 2 very short blocks from our cemetery and I used to walk there before my injury. There are always people around, tending to graves, walking , etc. A friend ( who has moved from the town) came to lunch On My Porch and then went over to the cemetery to sit with her son who is buried there.
I don’t think I really gave cemeteries much thought before moving here – but living in such an isolated place they’re much more than just A Place – they’re a daily part of the lives of the people who were born here
And tell Sally I said hi!
Ol Long Tall Sally will be knocking on the screen again in a week or two. If I didn’t get out there and cut her way back a couple times a year I cannot IMAGINE. She’d probably take over the back yard.
Oh, how sad and sweet. And how beautifully put — in a place like that, probably many/most of the people living there have family in those cemeteries. It’s a big thing here, too – Hispanic families visiting for Day of the Dead and also this past weekend.
Reading graves can be fascinating. At one of my primary schools was next to an old church that has family mausoleums for the families from the local stately home, the Spencer-Stanhopes. A branch of Diana, PoW’s family. There were other mine owners who had a family tomb. We were often sent to do brass rubbings or grave rubbings in fine weather. There were only around 30 pupils at the school! I suspect the teachers wanted a break from us.
During my collation of my family tree I discovered I now live in the same area as my paternal grandfathers family. They lived here for centuries. A church has stood on the same site as our village church since the 1100s. So its roots are very early Norman. It’s likely there was a church on the site prior to this as the village was listed as a settlement in the Domesday Book. The cemetery surrounding it dates back that far too. Bodies on bodies on bodies. The height of the oldest part of the cemetery is up to 5ft higher than it was. There are hummocks & the path to the current church is made of old tombstones. The current church was completed in 1517.
Sorry gone OTT there but I love rootling round cemeteries, especially the local one where my ancestor lie
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one among us who enjoys a good cemetery rootle 😀 And it’s always wild to me thinking about how different the definition of “old” is in Europe. Here a house is old if it’s Victorian. That’s an amazing story about your Norman church/settlement and the cemetery, I can picture it!
My mother was German and she said there were no old buildings in America. Said that Germany and the rest of Europe had old buildings, 1000 years old or more.
PS. Do the pyramids count as old buildings? If they do, they beat Europe. 😉 😉
We have some that are 300 (?) years old but that’s as old as it gets! Europe is way cooler.
You did it again – made me curious so – “Connecticut’s oldest house is the Henry Whitfield House in Guilford. Built in 1639, it is not only the oldest house in the state but also the oldest stone house in all of New England.” That makes it 387 years old.
I’ll take some pix when I’m next in the bottom village with Jarvis. I’ll try to find some of my relations grave stones that are still there too. Will let you know when I post them on Alitykescents
What a thought: that where you grew up was all farm land. Incredible.
My parents are buried in a cemetery on the far side of Queens, in NYC. My last trip there was via the Long Island Railroad on an incredibly hot day. I too totally talk to my parents (particularly my mother) every day.
Here, many of the tiny villages have small cemeteries attached to the small churches, along with WWI and II memorials. The memorials are both sad and fascinating because there are lots of names for places that back then probably didn’t have more than 1k inhabitants max.
We’re still in our heatwave. The roses and the clematis are growing madly. The jasmine is making lots of leaves and spreading more along the fence. I have my fingers crossed for the dahlias.
I love those tiny church cemeteries, they were all over the place in Charleston when I went. And I hope you get through your heatwave ok — it’s cold and wet here today but that is FINE, we need the rain.
Your memories are marvelous and caused me to time travel for a bit. 🙂 Having all that area to play in must have been wonderful! I also love cemeteries, especially old ones. It is so much fun exploring them. Never thought they were creepy or spooky either. (Personally I prefer cremation though.)
And sledding – too much fun to tell it all. I’m sitting here remembering and smiling like a dodo bird. lol.
Memorial Day in high school and even years later was when everyone went to ocean beaches because it was summer, even if you sat on said beaches huddled under blankets, freezing.
Have a great day. Love your roses.
That area for play WAS wonderful and of course I didn’t think about it at all at the time, it just … was. I do think the owners were smart in allowing us rather than spending time/$ trying to keep us out. That sledding hill is now covered with tombstones but I’m sure it’s in a lot of treasured memories. And HA on the memorial day memories — it’s often cold and miserable back east that weekend (it is this weekend) but let’s all pretend it’s NICE!