I See Dead People
As long as I can remember I have had a fascination with cemeteries and graves. I still remember going for walks in an old cemetery with my grandmother a reading the headstones. I still see this one grave that was twin babies at a cemetery in Walpole, Massachusetts. I believe it's called "Rural Cemetery". Or the one in my hometown that is really old with old slate skinny graves. I remember the name on one of them: "Welcome Daring". I thought - that's a weird name! "Welcome???" Who name's their kid "Welcome". He was born in 1783! And I FOUND his grave on Find a Grave (more about that site below). I was SO excited! Here's his grave: Welcome Darling
In any event, I thoroughly enjoy walking through cemeteries and spending time in them. Imagine my glee when I discovered a website called Find A Grave! Find A Grave is a website that allows the public to access and add to an online database of cemetery records. You can register (which is free) and you can add memorials, add photos to existing memorials, submit edits to them, link family members, etc! It's a GREAT site! Here's more information about it: Wikipedia - Find A Grave.
As I'm in the small section that is fenced off from the larger section, I hear voices over there. I jump in my car and drive over there (since they are separated and you can not walk through to the other side) so I can talk to those people in hope they are locals. They see me come and start walking back to their car. I yell out that I was wondering if they can help me as I'm looking for some graves. They turn around and were very nice. I explained what I was doing and he took my list and looked over the names. He proceeded to tell the following. He was, in fact, a local person who's family has been here since before the Civil War so he was very familiar with the names on that list. He told me that the cemetery in Bluffton has 2 sections that are next to each other but fenced off from each other because of segregation. (Ohhhhhhh - that would explain that.) Before a certain time in the US history whites and black couldn't even be buried in the same location together. That just BLOWS my mind! What did the white people think the dead black people would invade their graves? I can't even process this mindset!
He also told me the caretaker for the cemetery died years ago so part of it is in disrepair now. I wonder if I could start a volunteer program to help take care of it? How much effort would this take? I could get the Scouts involved maybe! I'll have to work on that! Seems such a shame to just let it keep going into disrepair.....
I've been on Find A Grave for a few months now and I signed up to volunteer to take photos of local graves. Anyone can do it! If you love cemeteries like I do, sign up and go grave hunting! You will love it!!! So today I had a very interesting afternoon grave hunting in Bluffton today. I printed out my list of local photo requested within 5 or 10 miles which is great! You don't have to go too far from your house at all. I heading to Bluffton Cemetery first. Fairly good size cemetery in old town Bluffton. There's probably about 600-650 people buried there. My list in hand I started walking up and down the graves. I have a list of probably 8 or 10 people I'm looking for and I can't find even ONE! What the heck! And in this same cemetery there are 2 different parts that are completely fenced off from each other. So weird! I can't figure out why. The bigger part of the cemetery isn't too badly kept up but the smaller part needs a lot of TLC! I walk through both parts of the cemeteries and can find any graves I'm looking for. Grrrrrrrr! This isn't how this was suppose to go!!!!
So he goes on to say that these people on my list are probably buried in the smaller cemetery and a number of the graves in the segregated cemetery are unmarked because the family had no means to give them a headstone. I did see some that were just wooden crosses dating back to the 40's & 50's and some graves that were handmade. I've never seen anything like it. The segregated cemetery broke my heart. I want to fix it!!!!!!!
In any event, I thoroughly enjoy walking through cemeteries and spending time in them. Imagine my glee when I discovered a website called Find A Grave! Find A Grave is a website that allows the public to access and add to an online database of cemetery records. You can register (which is free) and you can add memorials, add photos to existing memorials, submit edits to them, link family members, etc! It's a GREAT site! Here's more information about it: Wikipedia - Find A Grave.
As I'm in the small section that is fenced off from the larger section, I hear voices over there. I jump in my car and drive over there (since they are separated and you can not walk through to the other side) so I can talk to those people in hope they are locals. They see me come and start walking back to their car. I yell out that I was wondering if they can help me as I'm looking for some graves. They turn around and were very nice. I explained what I was doing and he took my list and looked over the names. He proceeded to tell the following. He was, in fact, a local person who's family has been here since before the Civil War so he was very familiar with the names on that list. He told me that the cemetery in Bluffton has 2 sections that are next to each other but fenced off from each other because of segregation. (Ohhhhhhh - that would explain that.) Before a certain time in the US history whites and black couldn't even be buried in the same location together. That just BLOWS my mind! What did the white people think the dead black people would invade their graves? I can't even process this mindset!
He also told me the caretaker for the cemetery died years ago so part of it is in disrepair now. I wonder if I could start a volunteer program to help take care of it? How much effort would this take? I could get the Scouts involved maybe! I'll have to work on that! Seems such a shame to just let it keep going into disrepair.....
I've been on Find A Grave for a few months now and I signed up to volunteer to take photos of local graves. Anyone can do it! If you love cemeteries like I do, sign up and go grave hunting! You will love it!!! So today I had a very interesting afternoon grave hunting in Bluffton today. I printed out my list of local photo requested within 5 or 10 miles which is great! You don't have to go too far from your house at all. I heading to Bluffton Cemetery first. Fairly good size cemetery in old town Bluffton. There's probably about 600-650 people buried there. My list in hand I started walking up and down the graves. I have a list of probably 8 or 10 people I'm looking for and I can't find even ONE! What the heck! And in this same cemetery there are 2 different parts that are completely fenced off from each other. So weird! I can't figure out why. The bigger part of the cemetery isn't too badly kept up but the smaller part needs a lot of TLC! I walk through both parts of the cemeteries and can find any graves I'm looking for. Grrrrrrrr! This isn't how this was suppose to go!!!!
So he goes on to say that these people on my list are probably buried in the smaller cemetery and a number of the graves in the segregated cemetery are unmarked because the family had no means to give them a headstone. I did see some that were just wooden crosses dating back to the 40's & 50's and some graves that were handmade. I've never seen anything like it. The segregated cemetery broke my heart. I want to fix it!!!!!!!
I proceed the next cemetery called the Pinckney Colony Cemetery. I found more of the same in that cemetery as this was another segregated cemetery. But there were regular head stone is this one. I came across a grave for a little boy who died in 2004 who was 4 years old and the family left some toy cars for him on this grave. There was a concrete bench right next to his grave. I could almost see his family going there and sitting, visiting him. When I sat on that bench I was overcome by sadness. I cried a little. Poor little angel! 4 years old is WAY too young! His name was Kaymen Hamilton. When you come across the babies graves, those are always the ones that hit you the hardest.
So after all this I dust myself off. I did take pictures of some of the more interesting ones I found. I was able to add a few into Find A Grave so all was not lost! I don't think any of the graves in the 1st segregated cemetery are are Find A Grave so will have to go back and start cataloging them. Why would someone put all the white graves in but not the black? So weird. I'll fix that! All in all, I find cemeteries so peaceful and I enjoy going and visiting all of those resting souls and yes I do talk to them - thankfully they don't answer back! It was a beautiful afternoon.
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