Ferndale Cemetery

Ferndale California is a small village near where I live. Founded during the North Coast's redwood logging boom of the late 19th Century, it is known for its picturesque Victorian era buildings. Dairy ranching is the mainstay of the area now. The village proper attracts many tourists and occasional film crews, but my favorite place is the cemetery. The main gate stands right behind the former Methodist church, and extends up the hill, ending under the shad of redwood and spruce trees. High up, the cemetery sports lovely views of town and the Eel River valley.

In August, friends and I descend on the county fair in some semblance of Victorian garb, and spend the afternoon at the horse races. This year, my beau Thorne and I first visited the cemetery. It was fun to be unintentional "ghosts of Ferndale past", getting stopped a few times by other visitors to have our photographs taken. Eventually we asked one of them to use my camera to take a photo of us.

 The obelisk in the photo above is clad in tin or some other metal. It seems to be an economical way to get good detail, plus the markers tend to survive better than stone.

I don't recall seeing sickles on any other headstones, but the symbolism makes sense. Considering the number of Irish immigrants to the California north coast, I am also surprised to not see many harps.

There are a number of weather-worn wooden markers. Someone has taken the time to find out who is buried there, and have remarked them to some extent. Others don't seem to have ever gotten a more permanent marker than that provided by the mortuary at the time of burial.

Lichen and moss have their way with the stones.

Family participation provides beauty and poignant looks into the deceased and their loved ones.

Gravesites from My Archives

These photos were taken in the days before digital. I didn't go quite as crazy taking pictures then, because of the cost of film and development. I scanned a selection of photos a while back, including these. I know there are more hiding in my boxes of slides and negatives. Eventually I'll dig them out and go through the slow process of scanning them.

The cemetery in Salzburg was amazing - small, but look at those markers! My traveling companion wasn't much into graveyards, so I didn't get to explore it as much as I'd have liked. We also breezed through a small cemetery in Killarney. I love Celtic knotwork, and was thrilled to see so many examples on headstones.




While in New Orleans, I went on a cemetery and Voodoo tour in the French Quarter. It wasn't one of the cheezy sort. The guide was very respectful of Voodoo, and dispelled a lot of misconceptions about it. We got to visit a Voodoo temple, where the grandmotherly priestess greeted us and explained a bit about her faith and the significance of the individual altars. It sounds like a nice combo of Catholic and Earth religions.

The Lafayette Cemetery is a wonderful example of what to do when you live and die on top of a swamp. Each tomb contains the remains of many people: There's an upper chamber for the recently deceased. After a couple of years, the body has decayed, and the bones can be transferred to the lower chamber when a new body needs to be interred. Some are/were family tombs, but space in the cemetery is at a premium, so many hold a multitude of people who have no strong connection to each other. Plaques on the side tell visitors who lies in the tomb, and some have extra plaques on the sides.

      

Marie Laveau was a self-proclaimed Voodoo priestess living before the abolition of slavery. She was responsible for the popular misconception of Voodoo, using scare tactics to keep other slaves (and perhaps some whites) in line. She's still quite popular, and admirers leave grave presents and mark her tomb with Xs - I can't recall if it's a protective sign or something else. The locals are apparently not happy about the defacement of the tomb, especially those who have ancestors sharing the space.


The cemetery in Whitianga, New Zealand is a basic modern cemetery, but I loved it when someone came visiting in a Parlour Ice Cream car.










In the highly geothermal region around Rotorua New Zealand, the Maori bury their dead as do the New Orleans folk. Tikis are posted around, I'm supposing as protection. Non-Maori were not allowed within, so I could only see a little.

      


While posting these few photos, I am reminded of so many cemeteries I've visited. I need to go through my boxes and get some more pictures ready to share. In the meantime, there will be an overabundance of more recent, digitally memorialized graveyards to show off.

Welcome to My Graveyard Rabbithole

I first became interested in graveyards when I was twelve. I came upon the local cemetery, and found the grave of a girl who had drowned at my age in 1929. I would visit her grave now and then, and wander about looking at the other markers. I admired the artistry of the older stones, and pondered the lives of those who lay there. When I travel, I like to visit the local cemeteries to see the differences in style of both the monuments and the entire site. In this newish era of the digital camera, I feel more free to collect images.

For this maiden posting, so close to Samhain, I offer a few images of Megalithic era tombs from England.

Trethevy Quoit, on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall

West Kennett Long Barrow, near Avebury, Wiltshire

Weyland's Smithy, near Uffington, Oxfordshire