Memorial Day

Well, given my interests in cemeteries and memory, Memorial Day is one of my big holidays.  And so digging deep in the stock of photographs, I thought that I'd post a couple of pictures I took last summer of cemeteries.  The first is the section for Union soldiers in the Mount Moriah Cemetery in West Philadelphia.  I was there with Norman Stein, checking out the cemetery, which has undergone a real transformation of late.

The second is of the Chester Rual Cemetery. which was estalished during the Civil War.  I blogged a little bit about this last summer.  I not all that happy with this version of the Chester Rural Cemetery, but I needed something with the US flag -- preferably lots of US flags -- and this seemed the best of what was available.  I spend so much time in the south that my stock is much deeper in monuments to the Confederacy than the United States.  The former are obvioulsy inappropriate for today.  Though I did think about a photograph or two of people who fought in the Spanish American War and whose ancestors fought for -- or otherwise supported -- the Confederacy.  I have one of those from the Clemson Cemetery (of a Calhoun descendant) and also one from the Spring Hill Cemetery in Lynchburg (of a Jubal Early descendant).

Comments

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

Al,

Have you given any thought to faux cemeteries? See, for example, the one we have out here at Arlington West: http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/2012/05/arlington-west-memorial-day-in-santa.html

[Alfred Brophy]

Actually, Patrick, I haven't, though I probably should. My interest in cemeteries is mostly ones created before the twentieth century (though I make exceptions on occasion).

The principle that a "cemetery" is a reminder of the past (or warning to the future) is key to faux as well as "real" cemeteries. So if I start working on contemporary cemeteries, I should certainly look at faux ones as well.