udhcmh:

A century ago this weekend, you would have found everybody out in the graveyard. Folks would have been doing lawn work, cleaning and repairing monuments, planting and arranging flowers, visiting, gossiping, courting, listening to sermons and songs, and picnicking on the grounds.

Traditionally, the last Sunday in May was Decoration Day, a day devoted to remembering all of a community’s dead and honoring them by tending their final resting places. The holiday of Memorial Day, for honoring the nation’s war dead, was grafted onto the older tradition after the Civil War but didn’t really replace it until after World War II. The present day observance of going to the beach or a barbecue instead of a graveyard and remembering the beer comes later.

Decoration Day was a joyous occasion. Not somber or gloomy. It had the character of a big family reunion. People would travel long distances to return to the family seat and remember their forebears. While their parents tended the graves, children would play, young couples would take private walks, and the elderly would tell the old stories and go through the genealogies. At the end of the day there would be a sermon and songs like “I’ll Fly Away” and “In The Sweet By and By” then a big picnic feast of fried chicken and country ham followed by pies and cakes washed down with ice water and lemonade.

Everyone went home having reconnected to the living and the departed and knowing that—when their time came—they wouldn’t be alone and they wouldn’t be forgotten.

We don’t do this anymore.

(via dansemacabre-)

lovely things → cemetery sculptures

(via dansemacabre-)

dansemacabre-:

Death statue from a cemetery in Sassari, Italy

Photos by marta marchetti on Flickr

Billy Martin (ex~Poppy Z. Brite)

“Graveyard Fairy”

 ”Cimetière Cajun”

“Imaginary Autumn” 

“The Dead Taught Me How To Write” 

City of Westminster Cemetery(and Kensal Green Cemetery, Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park)

St Sepulchre’s Cemetery, march 1982

Alexander von Liezen-Mayer - (1839 - 1898) - Girl in a cemetery

Bowler Henry Alexander “The Doubt: Can these dry bones live?” 1855 

Christer Stromholm ~ Montmartre, 1949 

Eugène Atget, Cemetery Pere Lachaise, Paris, France, c.1900 .

Copp’s Hill Burying Grounds cemetery, Boston, Massachusetts. 1895

Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, North End, 1898 

Copp’s Hill Burial Ground and Old North Christ Church, Hull Street and Salem Street, Boston, June 1920 

 The Singleton House, Charter Street, North End, 1898

Heiliger Sand - Worms, Germany

Tombstones in the Heiliger Sand (Jewish Cemetery) in the center of Worms, Germany. The earliest tombstone that is still standing dates from 1076; the last burial was in 1940. For unknown reasons, the graves do not have the customary orientation towards Jerusalem; the sole exception is the martyr Rabbi Meir von Rothenburg at the lowest point of the grounds.

dansemacabre-:

Sears Ads - Fall 1905

‘As we near the end of our journey on this world,
we should remember those we leave behind.
We should allow them to remember the times we enjoyed,
brief moments, long memories.
Our final resting place should be a symbol of our presence on earth.
It should be a part of nature, a part of the living,
ever changing, ever growing, ever being.
A place where life gone is celebrated by life anew.
A wooded field, a part of England in a place of tranquillity and of beauty.’
Author unknown

innesdreadful:

Carl Gustav Carus, Cemetery on Mount Oybin