a cemetery visit

Last summer Jim and I went for a drive to see if we could find my great grandfathers headstone.  Over the years I have heard tell of where it was and have wanted to go see it.  It didn't take us long to find where it was in the cemetery.

Looking at the headstone something just didn't look right with it.  It seemed to me that it should be standing up instead of laying down.

So, Jim pulled it up and lo and behold it was the kind that should be standing up.  The cemetery is right next to railroad tracks, so Jim went and found some rocks from the railroad bed and brought them back to fill in the hole that the headstone had made.

 

After fixing this headstone up we decided to go and visit the other cemeteries that our grandparents are buried in.  It took us a while to actually find both of Jim's sets of grandparents.  As we were looking for the grave sites, Jim in one part of the cemetery and I in another.  I spied this deer by Jim.  I yelled to Jim to turn around but not so loud that it would scare the deer off.  They stood staring at each other for some time.  The deer started to walk slowly towards Jim.  I wasn't too sure what that deer had in mind.  But, eventually it took off and we found both the grave sites.

Which we cleaned up a bit as the grass was growing pretty high around the headstones.  Getting on all fours Jim proceeded to clean them both up.

 

 

Then we took off to the cemetery where my grandparents are buried.  Their head stones were in very bad shape with the grass starting to overcrowd the stones.  With no shovel or gardening tool in the car the only thing we could find was a snow brush and walking stick.  They work pretty good too by the way.

Then we headed to the grave sites of my four siblings that had died in infancy.  One baby doesn't have a headstone, two of the babies headstones were almost buried and one was totally buried and we almost didn't find it.

 

 

 

They are sinking in the ground and next spring we plan to go back armed with the correct tools to raise them up so that they won't have a chance of getting buried again.

I never knew these siblings as they all died before I was born.  The last one and I had he lived would have been 11 months apart.  I remember as a child visiting these graves and knowing they were my siblings.  We have visited here when my older kids were small.  I'm not sure if they remember that even.  When Jim and I were cleaning all of the grave sites up we talked about how sad it will be when some day there would be no one to visit these graves. 

Comments

[Deb]

Thank you, Judy

[sue]

I noticed that the old headstone said "Kastama"...when did the name change to "Kastamo" and what's the story behind it? I can't imagine burying 4 babies, how sad.

[elk]

what a very special moment captured my you through your lens, I like seeing the way they have weathered

[Thimbleanna]

What a lovely post Judy. I think that all the time -- who will visit our grandparents site when my generation is gone. I also have memories of visiting my mother's sister's tiny little marker -- and they had to clean it because the grass was taking it over too.

[Rona]

On my side we do cremations so there is no grave sites to visit.

[~ Junkyard Jennifer]

I'd love to know about the name change, too. Those things are always so interesting.

I can't imagine losing 4 babies. So much sorrow...

~ Jennifer

[Gina]

Sometimes it is healing to go back and visit the past. Thank you for sharing your visit.

[Nora]

That was so nice of you to go and clean up those graves. The story you told touched my heart as my Aunt Irene (Kirby) lost 3 babies in infancy. They were born perfectly normal and then....they would die. One was named after my Dad. I remember the last time I talked to her about it, she cried. My heart aches for anybody that loses children. May God Bless those mothers (and fathers) dearly.