Family Field Trip: The Graveyard

Once, when I was about 9 years old, my mom and my sister took me to this really old graveyard that was rich with old stories, history, etc etc. We went in the late afternoon, and I can remember my sister joking as we drove in, "Remember, Mom, we have to make it out by dusk, they lock the gates, you know. Don't wanna get locked in."

We got locked in.

We got out, (by, um, driving thru someone's yard, hope they didn't get mad) and unfortunately the wonderful experience of being locked in a graveyard after my mom and sister had just got through telling me about 100 ghost stories about it, well, kind of overshadowed the ghost stories thierselves.

This is a story my kids love to hear. So, since the twins are about 12 now, sis and I decided it was high time the girls got to experience what some might call a sick and twisted family tradition, and, what sis and I call.........a history lesson!



Were the girls traumatized? After three and a half hours in the graveyard, (no, we didn't get locked in this time) we adults suggested some ice cream and then home. Their prompt response was:

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"
"Let's go see that one! We haven't seen that one!!! Or that one.....Mommy Aunt Janet pllllllleeeaaaaaase...........Can't we just go see a FEW more???"

So, what were some of the stories we told them?


About this lady, who died at 23, grieved to death at the loss of her lover. The story is that her gravesite statue (which has long since been vandalized, only half the statue remains) would cry tears of blood, and you can still to this day see bloodstains in the folds of the skirt. (I remember the stain being very prominent, when I was little, but today is no more than a faint line of rust color that you really have to look for.)



And about this grave marker, under which, if you sit, at night, the angel will drop cement raspberries onto your head.


And when this man died, his dog laid on his grave until it grieved itself to death. A statue of the dog was placed at the foot of the plot to honor him, but the head of the dog has since been taken off by vandals.

They got to experience the sadness of the death of a child, see whole family plots, and military graves, all formed in their small, neat and orderly rows, dating back to the Spanish-American War. They marveled at how our tributes in the form of the gravemarkers have changed over the years----from whole families buried together in mausoleums or large plots of ornate stones encased in wrought iron fences, to the open, slick, plain-fonted, simple stones of today, with no more than two or three people in an area bearing the same name.

And, hopefully, learned some valuable lessons in the meantime...