Cemetery: spooky or fascinating? by J.S. Marlo

J. S. Marlo BWL Author Page

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 11^th 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

 J. S. Marlo's Website

CEMETERY STREET

http://store.payloadz.com/go/?id=2357295

 

http://www.bookswelove.net/authors/waldron-juliet/

The first house I remember well was on Cemetery Street. The high windows of our little 1850’s brick house had a view of the historic local cemetery, complete with the sunken stones of the early settlers and poor folks, as well as Victorian obelisks and rich-family crypts. It was all sheltered by a fine stand of tall hardwoods—maples, beech, sycamore, Kentucky bean trees, and oaks. I often stood up on the couch and peered out the window across the street to see a funeral in progress, the black cars, the black dresses, hats and sad, slumped demeanor of the mourners.  At certain times of year, people arrived and filled the place with flowers—Memorial Day, particularly. We often walked there, Mother and I, with whatever dog we had, sharing the peace with our silent underground neighbors.

Always having an active imagination, I drew many pictures of the cemetery, my notions about  the underground life of the dead, so thickly tucked away just across the street. My parents, of course, found that a little odd, but it seemed perfectly straightforward to me. All those husbands and wives that I’d seen, their gravestones sitting side by side, I figured, were still there, only now confined to a spot beneath the ground. I always drew little rooms, with tables with decorative flowers on top, and sofas and chairs, a picture on the wall and, sometimes, even a pet. I thought it must be a little lonely and boring for them to never be able to go outside anymore, to be staying forever in that underground haven, which was all I could make out of the much talked about “heaven.”  It made perfect sense, when I first heard about ghosts, that the dead might wish to come out and walk around in the cemetery. I spent a lot of night times looking out the front window around twilight, hoping to see one. After all, I took walks there, under those aged trees, listening to the birds and breezes, and it was always pleasant.

(Here's an Egyptian queen enjoying her own little room inside the pyramid, playing Backgammon for eternity.)

 

For the early part of my childhood, I lived in that rural Ohio town, with a close-knit family around, which made all holidays great fun, but Halloween was special in its own way. My younger cousin, Mike, and I were often dressed to compliment each other—one year we were cowboy and cowgirl, on another we were Raggedy Ann & Raggedy Andy. Once we were Spanish dancers, complete with hats with bobbles dangling beneath the brims. My cousin, now a big time politician, had in childhood a pronounced lisp. I remember him carefully explaining to someone who’d asked that we were “’Panish-tan-sers.”  Our costumes were hand-made by grandmas and loving aunts and we showed them off at what seemed to us an exciting costume parade for children which was held annually at the high school.

 

I also remember one night of trick-or-treating with some older children who lived up the road, away from the cemetery. They were the kind who weren’t entirely to be trusted with a smaller kid who wasn’t a family member.  That night's costume had been spur of the moment, so my mother had turned me into a ghost in an old sheet with a pillow case head. The head, as we ran door-to-door in the darkness, kept slipping, so I couldn’t see.  I was gamely trying to keep up with their longer legs in the darkness, but they only laughed and ran ahead. I remember falling and rolling head-over-heels down the steep grade next to the last house on the block, splintering the warm popcorn ball I’d just been given. Then I had to untangle myself from the sheet. After I escaped from that, though, I was surrounded by night. The  only porch light seemed about a mile away.  It was so scary to be left alone in the darkness that I abandoned my goodies and ran home as fast as I could. 

 

~~Juliet Waldron

SEE ALL MY HISTORICAL NOVELS: 

http://www.bookswelove.net/authors/waldron-juliet/

 

and at:

 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/296857

https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-mymozart-1146387-160.html

https://store.kobobooks.com/en-ca/ebook/my-mozart-2

http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Books-Love-Historical-Romance-ebook/dp/B0089F5X3C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1446053762&sr=8-2&keywords=My+Mozart