Tombstone Tuesday: Decorations and folkways

I was back visiting Mom who will be 95 this month and lives in Western Maryland in a little town called Frostburg. There had been some back and forth emails amongst the cousins about who was decorating Grandma's grave and it all got ironed out, once everyone was safely and well assured that someone was taking care of Grandma. Decorating the graves of ancestors is taken quite seriously in these hills: you can't have too many flowers on a grave but too few or none at all is a big problem!

There have been some mysterious disappearance of decorations and charges of thievery by an unknown assailant. It's not unheard of for grave floral decorations to go missing, especially if they are unusual or quite elaborate and beautiful, and not properly secured. Plus, they can blow away if not tied down. And because of the penchant for the weather to take a turn to ugly with a sudden freeze mid-summer or the like, most everyone uses plastic flowers. Here in SoCal, it's mostly real flowers or nothing at all. In Frostburg it wall-to-wall plastic flowers in cheery colors! Everywhere! So, on occasion, it's actually a treat for the eye to visit the cemetery and a nice drive through can be an afternoon's entertainment!

Decoration of graves has it's official kick-off on Memorial Day, which some of the older folks still call Decoration Day, especially when they are talking about getting graves ready. Frostburg is a place where the ancestors stuck around for a number of generations and then mostly moved on for better work opportunities. That said, a number of cousins live within close driving distance to the two major cemeteries where our people are buried, and Mom still lives in Frostburg, and Aunt Betty too.

My Sis-in-law likes decorating the grave and takes it on for our branch of the family.She is always on the lookout for suitable plastic flowers. Silk is too fragile so only plastic will cut it in this region's rugged weather. Throughout the year she purchases new flowers, keeps her stash, and then assembles them into a decoration using her personal knowledge of the person, to craft an appropriate and resplendent display. She wants the person whose grave she decorates to like it. Grandma Kelly's grave decorations are always pink because that was her favorite color. My Sis-in-law is exceptionally good at making up those decorations!

In the fall the flowers of summer are retired and a more modest fall arrangement in Autumnal colors takes its place, the better to withstand the changing weather. Christmas time sees poinsettias relieving the fall arrangements. Those stay for the winter, making a bright splash of red above the white of snow, and in Frostburg there's a lot of snow. There might be a spring bouquet about Easter time, but the "big guns" of grave decoration come out for Memorial Day and are on display all summer.

Grandpop Kelly got very upset at Mom when she researched and found that his own grandfather's grave, the location of which was once thought to be unknown, was in St Michael's cemetery after all. He insisted that if that was his grave, he and his father would have cut the grass, so it couldn't have been his grandfather's grave! Case closed! No further discussion needed. (Sorry, Grandpop, it is his grave.)

Decorating the graves of ancestors ties our family together. We take pride in knowing that no one is forgotten. We know that we're connected to each other because we share responsibility amongst the cousins and make sure that every grave is covered. It's just one other activity that makes us family.


Photo at top: Mom's brother Camey and his wife Rita's grave.

Dad's grave. Got style.

Grandma and Grandpop Kelly. Since Sis-in-law took over the decorating task the motif is all pink. Sorry Grandpop, but you know Grandma always got her way.

My great grandparents. Not forgotten.

In the way-back dark woods of West Virginia is a little cemetery at Magnolia. (See blog post about a visit to Magnolia here.)  When you find it you expect to see it all over-grown and unkempt. But it's not, and this Civil War vet and family member is still honored. He died in 1861 at the very start of the war. (For a story about him click here.)

 

 

This post uses a GeneaBlogger's blogging prompt called Wisdom Wednesdays . Check them out!

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/07/tombstone-tuesday-decorations-and.html

Tombstone Tuesday: A Funny Thing in The File

If you've been reading for any time at all then you know that I'm following in Mom's footsteps here doing whatever I can to get her fine work out to the world. Her files are a treasure chest of cousin bait! All I have to do is bait the hook and find a good fishin' hole.

 

Recently as a small project to get the files in order I've been doing some photo editing and file naming on the photos Mom took over the years of tombstones. It's still a mess but getting better as time goes by.

 

Mom will admit that she's not the world's greatest photographer, but that never stops her from whipping out the camera and snapping a tombstone. And I'm super happy that she did back when Dad was alive and could drive her all over Western Maryland, northern West Virginia and south west Pennsylvania all along the border with Maryland.

 

She'd find out about another cemetery and off they'd go on an adventure. Dad would make groaning sounds when he had to drive his precious Cadillac down a dirt road to a long-ago closed family or small community cemetery. The best pay off was when Dad found an old farmer or caretaker around that he could chat up about history of the area. Dad loved history and he loved talking to old guys because they knew so much stuff!

 

Off Mom would go looking for tombstones with surnames that were on her Big Tree. When she got the film developed Mom put them into one of those photo albums with the sticky pages. (I can hear your groan way over here, but she likes them.) So last year when I was visiting Mom I took photos of all her photos. Yes, I can hear you groan again because it's a loss with each step, but hey, you gotta get what you can get while you can get it.

 

Here's one I found just recently of the tombstone for my cousin Crissy, who is gone now, and her son Sammy. It's a sad image to me because I knew them well, or at least it was sad until I looked again. See Mom??

 

 

 

 

 

Tombstone Tuesday is a weekly blogging prompt from GeneaBloggers. You can find the whole week's list of prompts here.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/02/tombstone-tuesday-funny-thing-in-file.html

Tombstone Tuesday: The Great Grands

So here it is Tuesday again, and let's take a look at some tombstones, these from Mom's photo collection. Tombstone Tuesday is a weekly blogging prompt from GeneaBloggers. You can find the whole week's list of prompts here.

 

This time we're looking at all of my great grands.

First are Dad's Father's parents and there's a Surname Saturday post about the Kelly line here. 

Then on Dad's mother's side are the Zellers. You can read about these Zellers in a Surname Saturday post here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mom's father's side, Daniel and Jane Price Williams are explained in a Surname Saturday post here.

And Mom's mother's side are the Whetstones and you can read about thm here.

 

 

 

All of these grandparents are buried in the cemeteries of Frostburg, Maryland. The Kelly - Zeller side are at St Michaels' Cemetery (Catholic) and the Willimas - Whetstone are at the Frostburg Memorial Park. Makes it easy to decorate the graves:)

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/02/tombstone-tuesday-great-grands.html

Tombstone Tuesday: What's Up With That One?

Last June when I went back East to see Mom and family, we all made Brother drive us to Magnolia, West Virginia, a long lost town now in the deep dark back woods. And I mean back woods! Here's the link to a post about our trip and visit to the old and still cherrished Cherry Orchard Cemetery: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/06/let-me-take-you-to-magnolia.html

There was an unusual, at least to me, tombstone there and here's a photo of it and a view of the Cherry Orchard Cemetery. As you can see, and I hope that I can correctly read, the inscription says in part, "OXWBLL, MCH 277, 1861." It could be a fragment, don't you think, with the left side missing...?

The mystery tombstone

Entrance to the Cheery Orchard Cemetery

In old and now gone Magnolia, West Virginia.

Last October I went again back East to see Mom and family and we took a ride west of the little town of Frostburg, Maryland where Mom lives to a roadside attraction called Penn Alps and Artisan Village. It's located right smack next to the Castleman River and the old historic Castleman River Bridge seen below. It's still a picturesque and historic bridge. 

(Photo from Wikipedia)



On the porch of one of the cottages was this tombstone in a similar style, I thought, as the Cherry Orchard Cemetery one. See what you think. These two tombstones are maybe 60 miles apart, as the crow flies and as best as I can tell, but this is mountainous country and the drive is at least 100 miles. The informational card says that the tombstone came from Salisbury, Pennsylvania and that moves the distance from the Cherry Orchard stone to at least 100 miles as the crow flies, and more driving especially depending on the depth of snow on the roads this time of year which - and I've personally seen this - can be over a man's head!

Tombstone and informational panel from the Penn Alps Village.

This is the only tombstone that bears any resemblance to the Cherry Orchard one I've ever seen, but then I don't really get around much. 

There are similarities and differences too. Here are my random observations:

* The 1818 stone is complete in regard the writing and the Cherry Orchard stone is a fragment.
* The style of inscription is different but both are freehand and not "professional" with straight lines and uniform lettering. 

* Taking the style from the Penn Alps stone as a guide to layout and placement of information, I'm guessing that the date of death might be March 27, 1861, and the double 77 following the 2 is a corrected error. Maybe, maybe not.

* I am clueless as to the OXWBLL on the Cherry Orchard stone. Is it a name or a place or none of the above? 

Am wondering if I'm trying to connect the dots and they don't belong together at all. That happens to me in an effort to seek meaning. Sometimes the dots just don't connect, don't belong together. 

May all your tombstones be easily identifiable and already on FindAGrave, with lots of bio information:)

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/01/tombstone-tuesday-whats-up-with-that-one.html