Thanks, Dr. John. I will look into both the Society and the books. I really am not trying to be gruesome, just love old cemeteries and reading the inscriptions. When I lived in New England, the thing for unscrupulous people to do, was to steal gravestones, take them to NYC and sell them for beaucoup bucks as coffee tables. That really PO'd a lot of us, esp. the families of the deceased! Art: too true!**BG**

Here's a little something I wrote up for my mom one time about the cemetrey in Mystic, CT:

From a letter to my Mom, 4/26/93; Mystic, CT "Jerusha and I have been walking everyday at an old cemetery. It is so interesting!
There is one stone with Chinese characters written on it and, in English, it says, "we are one in God's heaven". There are many little children's graves from the sixteen and seventeeen hundreds; as well as many of ships' captains and soldiers of all wars.
Huge, peaceful trees lend their serenity and protection amid great, broad expanses of green grass, while the Mystic River, broadened into a wide delta, slowly wends its was to Long Island Sound.
The dirt roads are paved with clam shells dropped, from high on the wing, by hungry seagulls. Great drooping tree branches offer cool shade from a not very bright sun.
Small hawks, raccous gulls, brash ravens, articulate mockingbirds, and robins trill, whistle, mimic, and wax poetic, lifting one's spirits no matter the day's weather or events.
Majestic headstones proudly proclaim the hoped for immortality of each family through whatever claim to fame they may have -- even the humble, abiding love stated for one another.
I've seen vaults with monuments to soldiers who died while trying to escape the Rebel prisons of the South; babies who drowned or died of "the fever"; women who literally gave their all to carry on the husband's name through death in childbirth; couples who have their stones mounted, but no death dates etched in -- they are still alive! Talk about early retirement! The old stones are my favorites. Each one tells a story, allows me a glimpse of a life gone by -- its struggles, hopes, and joys.
I think of the graveyard as nature undisturbed; I guess because all of the people in it are so deep and quiet! Ha! Ha!

katlaughing