Posted in Graveless memorials, tagged alabama, birmingham, birmingham civil rights institute, civil, martin luther king jr, sculpture, statues on August 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Today is the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s delivery of his “I have a dream…” speech during the 1963 March on Washington. I don’t have a photograph of King’s grave, but this statue stands in the park outside the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. It may not mark his body’s final resting place, but statues like this of influential figures serve some of the same purposes. They provide a focal point for memory and a place to talk about what that person did and why it is important.
Posted in Cemeteries, tagged alms house cemetery, child, children, civil, gettysburg, names, pennsylvania, unknown on May 10, 2010| 1 Comment »
The Old Alms House Cemetery sits within the Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania. The county Alms House complex, for sheltering the poor and mentally ill, stood in the vicinity at the time of the battle in 1863, and the cemetery remains on Barlow Knoll. (I haven’t been able to find a credible account of when the institution closed.) When we visited, there were markers with dates as recent as the previous year.
The grave markers are all rather simple – this is, after all, a cemetery for the poor. The monument for Asa Brown, “erected by friends,” is fancy in this context.
Most of the graves marked are for the very young or the very old.
It is also the resting place of those who could not be identified.
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | |
A Grave Concern 