Raised in cemeteries

The urn atop a White family tombstone in the Chariton Cemetery, example of the art that catches your eye if you pay attention.

Am I obsessed with cemeteries and tombstones? Hmm. Well, if so it's genetic. My maternal grandfather, William Ambrose Miller, was similarly obsessed and my parents (and by default, me) generally were his companions on tombstone expeditions. Grandpa knew where most of the bodies were buried, but wanted to know where everyone was at. So some of my earliest memories involve trekking through tombstones.

As a result, it never occurred to me that a cemetery was an unfriendly or spooky place, or that the remains of those who rested there could harm me. I have something in the neighborhood of 30 grandparents of various generations and an infinite number of aunts, uncles and cousins buried in the four-county (Lucas, Monroe, Wayne and Appanoose) area, with more just over the line in Marion. So it always has seemed as if there were someone to locate.

Once most of the kinfolk had been tracked down, these cemetery treks became purely aesthetic experiences, art for art's sake. And if you pay attention to details and really look, you'll discover that there really is tombstone art --- a whole language of symbols and an archive of stone-cutting craftsmanship --- and that cemeteries are museums filled with this art.

There are sidetrips down the epitaph trail. One of my favorites is incribed on the Corydon Cemetery tombstone of Great-grandmother Chloe (Boswell/Prentiss) Brown's first husband, Moses Prentiss, who died July 6, 1865, when the steam engine used to power the sawmill he was operating exploded:

Remember, friends, as you pass by,

As you are now, so once was I,

As I am now, so must you be,

Prepare for death, to follow me.

Beyond that, there is (for me, at least) pleasure in scratching around in the archives to discover just who the people whose graves these monuments mark were, restoring a degree of flesh and life to those old dry bones.

Friend Darrin got his third and final turkey of the 2004-2005 seasons the other day, a bearded (therefore non-reproducing and legal) hen. For him, the hunt is far more than just something to do. It's a form of art, and each outing is a carefully choreographed and executed expression of that art.

Some stalk turkeys, others stalk tombstones.

It's all a matter of taste and inclination.