funeral customs

I'm reading a great book called "Death Warmed Over" by Lisa Rogak. It's basically about funeral customs all over the globe...from places as diverse as Egypt, Holland, and Iran. It's really fascinating, and I highly recommend it!

Hopping

Hi all, sorry it's been quiet around here for a little while. The holidays were pretty hectic (in a fun, good way!) But I'm looking forward to sharing more pictures with you and writing a lot about our local cemeteries. Please keep watching this space...more to come very soon. Happy holidays!

St. Peter's

Hello all, apologies for not posting a bit sooner! This time of year can be pretty hectic.

Just last weekend, I was walking through Society Hill, and came upon St. Peter's Episcopal Church cemetery, at 4th and Pine. St. Peter's was the church for many of our founding fathers, and there are several famous notables interred here, including George Dallas, the 11th Vice President of the United States.

I saw several unusual headstones and monuments here whose style I've not seen anywhere else, including the one in this picture. (There were several monuments like this, where the carved cross appears almost to be draped sideways over the top.)
I'll post the rest of the pictures very shortly.

Money for Cemeteries

This past summer, Delaware passed Senate Bill 256, which, among other things, established a Distressed Cemetery Fund that will be used to help restore abandoned cemeteries. It makes me wonder if something similar could happen in Pennsylvania, though considering our funding struggles (in Philadelphia especially), it might be unlikely.

It seems like a great idea though. Even if we could allocate a dollar or two of taxpayer money towards a fund like this, it would be something. They'd just have to figure out how to distribute it.

Palmer Cemetery

Palmer Cemetery is a small cemetery located in the Fishtown section of Philadelphia. An acquaintance at Laurel Hill had clued me in to its existence, and since I was headed to Port Richmond, a neighboring primarily Polish community, to buy pierogies today, I decided to take a look. (You can read more about the cemetery and its origins here.)

In the cemetery, I found some of the most lovely old headstones (including many that are definitely feeling the effects of time), and then newer ones like the one above, that contain the image of the deceased. I hadn't seen one of these before I went to Mt. Peace two weekends ago, and I have to admit they brought me up a little short. I've seen headstones with small pictures attached, but there's something about this format that to me really memorializes a person. But then I've heard some say they find them gaudy and showy. What do you think?

The rest of the photos from my visit can be found here. I hope to take more cemetery pictures I have a better camera, but I was pleased that these came out as well as they did using my tiny camera phone!

Friends' Final Resting Place

As most of you reading this blog probably already know, Philadelphia is the home of many Quakers, and has been since William Penn sailed across the ocean in the Welcome. Serendipitiously, I came across the graveyard where many of those Quakers are interred, Friends South-Western Burial Ground.

I'd been doing the whirlwind tour I mentioned earlier, and was driving through West Philly searching for Mt. Moriah. I suddenly saw on my left a sea of small white stones, all the same except for the names and dates, parallel to the ground. No ornate masoleums or tall monuments here.

(I would later find out that there were previously two Center City Quaker gravesites, one at 4th at Arch, and another at 16th and Race, where meeting houses are still located, but both were disinterred and moved to the South-Western site in the early 1900s. The South-Western site is located at 236 Powell Lane in Upper Darby, just over the county line from Philadelphia.)

Tom Keels had mentioned in his presentation a few weeks back that Quakers believed in very plain graves, none more elegant than the other. And it certainly makes sense in light of the Quaker philosophy of simplicity and practice of being more concerned with the inward than the outward.

There was something very profound in those humble, flat white rows. It's been said that death is the great equalizer. This graveyard is a poignant reminder of that.

Mikveh Israel

My wanderings took me to one of the three Mikveh Israel cemeteries this weekend. The one at 8th and Spruce is perhaps the most famous (and preserved), but there are also locations at 11th and Federal and 55th and Market. I visited the one in West Philly.

This picture, to me, captures the odd juxtaposition of a quiet resting place with the bustle of city life. (That's Philly's el in the background.) One has to wonder if those spirits are a little more restless since that rumble's so darn noisy! ;)