Call me
weird, but I love visiting cemeteries where people have been buried—unburied and reburied—for centuries. Day or night, graveyards are quiet and peaceful, but I'll admit I've never ventured in one in the middle of the night alone. I might find it spooky...
While I was
in Paris, I made a point for visiting the catacombs with my daughter. It was eerie
to see the skeletons neatly stacks into a solid wall so they wouldn’t tumble. Some
of these bones or skulls were three or four hundred years old. Though I write romantic
suspense (there are a fair amount of dead people and old bones in my stories) I've
never googled how long it took for bones to decompose. Maybe I should have,
because I would have guessed way less than four hundred years.
While seeing
bones and skulls is interesting, I’m most fascinated with grave markers and the
inscriptions on them. There are a lot to learn from the names, descriptions, and
dates.
During a three-day
vacation in Iceland, hubby and I rented a car and toured the island. In the countryside,
we stumbled onto an old church dating back to the middle ages. Behind it was a
small cemetery. Graves were marked with wooden crosses or headstones. The oldest grave dated back to the 11th
century while the most recent burial had occurred in my lifetime. I was amazed that most of the inscriptions had weathered the centuries. It was interesting to see how some names change through time (an "S" that disappears, or a "D" that becomes a "T"), and to travel from one generation to the next and discover the family connections between the dead. Some had died young while others had lived to see their seventieth or eightieth birthday. To be honest, I was surprised to see so many of them reach an advanced age during the 12th or 13th century.
The early markings on the gravestones behind that little Icelandic church fascinated me, especially the ones dating back to the middle ages. I have seen many ways to write dates, but that was my first encounter with this specific form. I wish I had taken a picture, but the battery on my phone was dead. I wrote an example of the markings on a piece of paper (see photo). In that example, the person would have been born on April 17, 1263 and would have died on October 30, 1318.
My current story "Misguided Honor", which I'm hoping to finish by Christmas, revolves around an unusual graveyard near Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia. I've lived near Annapolis Royal for three years and my second daughter was born there. Back then, I was too busy raising my young children to spend time in graveyards. If only I'd known then what I know now...
Last year my hubby built my family tree. My ancestors arrived in Canada in the early 1600s. In my youth I'd heard stories about some of the males marrying native women, so I wasn't surprised to learn I indeed possess native blood, though it's very diluted after thirteen generations. What I didn't expect was to learn that a big branch on my father side settled in Annapolis Royal in the mid 1600s then fled to Quebec in the mid 1700s to avoid the great deportation. I had no idea that many of my ancestors were Acadians. These first settlers from whom I descend are probably buried in Annapolis Royal cemetery—a few streets from the hospital where my daughter was born more then two hundred and fifty years later.I wish I had known when I lived in Annapolis Royal that I had come full circle. Now I long for a chance to walk into that cemetery. Maybe one day...
JS
