Tuesday Tidbits

Myrtle Winter (yes, her first name is misspelled on the headstone) was just 21 years old when she was laid to rest at Valley View Cemetery (also called Rocky Ford Cemetery) in Rocky Ford, Colorado. A tiny obituary printed in the Rocky Ford Enterpris…

A recent online discussion sparked curiosity about the language surrounding death and burial. The term "planted" surprised some, but its origins imply the term was used with affection, especially among certain populations of farmers across the Unite…

Every time I visit any cemetery I begin to immediately wonder about the people buried in it. What are their stories? Finding headstones that include a photographs is always extra special because now I know what they looked like even if I don't know …

Over the centuries, humans have marked graves with many things, the most common being stone. However, another material that became popular, especially in Europe for a time, was iron, both cast and wrought. In the case of wrought iron markers, the me…

Why do many historic graves have both a Headstone and a Footstone? Headstones, also called grave markers or gravestones, typically contain information about the person buried in a grave. They are usually placed at the "head" of the grave, similar t…

Resting beneath a stone vault surrounded by an ornate iron fence in the The Brothers’ Cemetery in St. Peter Port, Guernsey is a woman whose life was celebrated by the entire island for the last decade of her life and whose death was reported i…

Before the arrival of the Anglos in 1887, the region comprising Skagway and its environs was home to the Tlingit people, known as the People of the Tides. The Tlingit were and still are skilled mariners, fishermen, hunters, gatherers, and trader…

If you travel south to Yorba Linda, California you might wish to visit the grave of the Pink Lady in the Yoruba cemetery. There are a few variations of the Pink Lady's story, but it seems the most common one is this: One evening after a dance at th…

Elizabeth Margaret Patton was born to Robert and Rebecca Patton in Swannanoa, North Carolina on May 22, 1788. She was one of the youngest of eight children. Her father was a gentleman farmer with “thousands” of acres of farmland and Eliz…

Nestled in the quiet town of Ashmore, Illinois lies the St. Omer Cemetery, a serene resting place marked by the passage of time and the whispers of folklore. Among its weathered gravestones and fading epitaphs, one particular monument stands out&mda…