Cemetery Walk

We have about two weeks with almost no scheduled activities, so I'm getting a little creative in filling up our days.  If they are free, all the better.  We drive by an old cemetery almost every day and Malcolm has been asking questions about it for several months.  As strange as it sounds, I have been promising to take them there for a long, long time, but keep forgetting.  So, with nothing else on the schedule, off to the cemetery we went!  Surprisingly, it was a very nice morning out with the kids.  We all got some fresh air and exercise (though I did have to tell Malcolm that he shouldn't run around crazy; at least he asked first) and it was very peaceful.


I brought paper and crayons and taught Malcolm how to do crayon rubbings on the tombstones. I helped him at first, but he got the hang of it really quickly and was doing some all by himself.

He found the ones with big letters to be the easiest, and he could pick out his favorite letters to make copies of.

Dorothy also gave it a try.

After we finished doing our rubbings, we went for a walk to look at all of the different grave markers. I swear it isn't as morbid as it sounds. Malcolm really liked touching the different headstones and feeling the difference between the old, rough ones and the newer, polished ones. He had a definite preference for the older stones that were very worn down where the top of the stone was white and he could see the crystals.

This is not as cute as it looks.  Malcolm is actually trying to pull her along and keep her from going towards the major road.  I had said that we needed to stay toward the back of the cemetery so Dorothy wouldn't wander into the road, and he took it to heart.  They are no where near the road, but he was still trying to pull her away.  She fell down just after I snapped this.

There are a wide variety of sizes and shapes of markers at this cemetery.

At the far end of the cemetery, was a small mausoleum which both kids found fascinating. Dorothy liked climbing up and down the steps (her favorite activity). Malcolm wanted to go inside, and I think he thought it was similar to a little play house and wasn't really understanding when I showed him that this was what a family used to bury their loved ones.

Peeking in the mausoleum.  This one only has 6 spaces.

Dorothy on the mausoleum steps.

This would have been such a cute picture if they would have held still for two seconds.

Climbing over a small rock wall.

We found out several years ago that the town's tombstone maker (carver?) lived in our house about 100 years ago. When we moved in, there was a tombstone propped up against the garage and when we dug up some pavers in the yard, we discovered that they were partially carved tombstones. We also dug up a tape measure from the Bedford, Indiana limestone quarry when working on our yard. I wondered how many of the headstones we saw today were made by the person who used to live in our house.


One marker in particular caught my eye and made me very reflective. It was a series of 5 stones, all connected. On closer inspection I saw that it was for a couple who lost 5 of their children as young babies. You can see the ages and dates on the markers, and the names of the children are carved on top.



Their names, from left to right, were: Ester, George, Olevia, Abby, and Louisa. I am so very grateful to live in a time where loosing so many children so young is almost unheard of. I can't imagine how awful it must have been for those parents to have to go through that over and over again and I felt very blessed to be there visiting with my two children.

On the way home, we stopped in the pet store and looked at all of the animals.  Malcolm liked the mice the best, probably because they were the most active.  Dorothy like the doggies (some sort of terrier) that were there getting groomed.   I wanted to swing through Starbucks on the way home and get a drink for myself, but realized that the stroller I had brought did not have a cup holder.  Sigh.  So, we just went home and had a nice lunch.