We have returned

…and hopefully, so will this blog. So I admit, I’ve fallen off in posting this year, and for that, I apologize. But I’m in the middle of uploading my photographs from Ireland, where I visited no less than 6 cemeteries, including the final resting place of poet William Butler Yeats. It’s taken me a whole week just to sort through the photos, and I’m still uploading them so I can get to the much more amusing task of writing about them. So, photos and posts coming soon, and thanks for your patience with me. New, fun posts are coming soon!

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2012 in review – thanks for reading, everyone!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 20,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 5 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

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Brother

I’m trying to get caught upon my blog posts. My apologies to my faithful readers. I’m actually participating in Camp NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), where you write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, and it’s coming along well, but it has meant sacrificing on some other things, including making sure I get a daily post up in this blog. I’m in the home stretch and set to make the goal, but you have probably noticed that posting is infrequent and a lot of my entries are shorter.

So, onto today’s topic:

The thing that struck me about the epitaph on this stone was the flexible meaning of the word “brother” in our culture. The primary assumption I would make is that the monument was erected by the siblings of Jedediah Southworth. But there are lots of ways to be siblings – full, half, step-, or adoption. We also use “brother” as a term to indicate close emotional ties that might not be mappable to a future geneaology. Our fellow soldiers are our brothers in arms. We may decide as children to be become blood brothers. We use the term for fictive kin, for friends so close they become our chosen family.

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Hope you enjoyed

I tried very hard to focus my posts this month on gravestones for women in honor of Women’s History Month, and I was kind of disappointed to discover how hard it was. Women’s tombstones seem less likely to have epitaphs or other biographical information beyond whose wife or mother the deceased was.

Tonight I was at a restaurant and the hostess’ nametag said her name was “Keziah.” It’s a name I had never before seen given to a currently living person, but it was a little awkward to explain that I run a cemetery blog, and so she might have thought I was a bit strange. She did tell me that it is from the Biblical Book of Job.

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An apology

Sorry for the lighter than usual postings lately, but I’ve been able to do two more cemetery trips with the nice weather we’ve been having, so expect some exciting new posts soon!

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A Grave Concern: Happy New Year!

Another year has come and gone. I won’t miss 2011 at all – it was a year of sadness, sickness, and death for myself and so many around me, even if it wasn’t often reflected in this blog. I’m looking forward to a better year, and that includes lots more trips to cemeteries and plenty of photos.

Last year my goal was to post once a day for the whole year, and I didn’t quite achieve that – there were a few days I missed in there. So I’m going to renew that goal for 2012 for a post for every day. I appreciate all of you coming along for that adventure.

And for those of you who have asked, after 2 1/2 years of writing this blog, I’ve finally given you a photograph of me (not just my shoes peeking into the picture). This is me at work in the Nelaview Cemetery at the former Presbyterian Church in East Cleveland. The photo was taken by another member of the Collinwood-Nottingham Historical Society.

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A Grave Concern: Clearance fun

I had some fun at the post-Halloween clearance sales at local craft stores. For those of you who only know me online, one of my other passions is baking, particularly cupcakes. I found a silicone baking pan to make little tombstone shaped cakes.

I’m nowhere near as good of a candy maker as I am a baker, but I might have to try some Halloween candies next year with this mold.

(Side question to Wilton: Why 1916?)

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A Grave Concern: Flowers for a friend

I am back from vacation, but still catching up, and not sure I’m ready to deal with writing about cemeteries. While I was on vacation last week, a good friend of mine passed away. Rest in peace, Mariassa.

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A Grave Concern: Vacation announcement

Just wanted to let everyone know that I will be on vacation next week without internet access. I’ve set up posts for all the days I’m gone, but it does mean that comment moderation will be non-existent, so be patient if it takes a while for your comment to show and be nice if you already have commenting privileges. See everyone on in a little over a week!

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A Grave Concern: New Camera

My new camera showed up Friday night on my doorstep- a compact Kodak M583.  The resolution is supposed to be quite good for a compact, and it got pretty good ratings for low light situations.  I traded that for a camera that’s not so good on action shots, because the bulk of my photographic subjects are stationary.  I’ll be taking it out on my first cemetery excursion today – the Collinwood Nottingham Historical Society is visiting St. Paul’s Cemetery, where some more of our Collinwood School Fire victims are buried.

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