Cemetery Tours - Page 3

sandy53 · ‎03-12-2010

@kaybee wrote:
I've noticed a number of local cemetery tours being conducted this year in our local area. They have local actors playing parts of prominent people and their families who are buried there. Our are produced by the historical societies.

I live in a small city in Iowa and this kind of event is held in one of our cemeteries about once a year. It isn't because it is about ghosts or something spooky, but intead it is a historical skit. It doesn't appeal to me, but it is popular with actors and history buffs.

151949 · ‎03-09-2010

@sunshine45 wrote:
@Lucky Charm wrote:
Am I understanding this right? That workers must remove the decomposed bodies from the (cheap) caskets and bag them to store them elsewhere?

Ugh. Something about the 'remains' being removed from a casket just seems so disrespectful. Maybe that's not the right word.

yes, they do have to be removed from the casket, but the decomposed bodies are then placed in a bag and are then placed back in the grave/mausoleum/crypt. problems can arise when a city has a high water table and a casket can easily "float back up" to the top of the grave again, even if it is weighted down.

Here in Pa when a grave is opened there is a concrete lock box put in and then the coffin is put inside it and a top placed before the dirt is replaced over it . Ain't no one floating back up here! Even cremated remains - if then buried - must be in a locked concrete box.

My parents chose to be interred in a masoleum and that is also made of individual concrete boxes. They are just above ground instead of buried.

I agree that disturbing the remains after a year is disrespectful.A person should rest for eternity where they are placed, undisturbed.

ValuSkr · ‎03-15-2014

@151949 wrote:
I agree that disturbing the remains after a year is disrespectful.A person should rest for eternity where they are placed, undisturbed.

I think this is common in areas below sea level, where bodies cannot be buried in the ground, and folks aren't rich enough to build mausoleums ad infinitum. Perhaps they should embrace cremation.

Lucky Charm · ‎03-09-2010

I also think it's disrespectful to have tour buses and 'spooky skits' etc in cemetaries.

Not every one who passed is a Shecky Greene.

Graves are filled with tragic endings, devastating diseases and unsolved mysteries.

Their not just filled with the elderly, but young lives taken too soon.

Let the actors perform on stage, not on hallowed ground.

flickerbulb · ‎03-09-2010

I toured the two famous cemeteries in New Orleans. I was surprised to see tombs with many, many names listed.

I thought that there was no way all of those people could be buried in there.

I then learned that they are called "oven vaults". I was there around the 4th of July and I think it was the hottest heat I have felt...and I live in FL so I know heat.

Well, the reason why there are so many names is what others have already mentioned. The body self cremates in the hot New Orleans weather. We looked inside some open vaults and there is a little scooped out ledge at the back of the vault.

After a year, someone opens the vault and pushes the cremains to the little scooped out area and another resident takes the now open vault.

They then add the name to the outside and close it up. Interesting!

Plaid Pants2 · ‎03-14-2015

One day many, many years ago, I walked around one of my local cemetaries, and read all the different head stones. I wasn't on a tour, or anything. It was just something that I decided to do one day. I was careful to stay on the paths. I don't like walking across other people's graves. It seems disrespectful to me.

The saddest part of the cemetary, was where they had all the babies burried. Some were only days old.

So many questions went through my mind as I saw the little graves.

"Is the family still together?"

"Did they go on to have other children?"

"Do they still think about the child that they laid to rest here?"

"Do they ever visit the gravesite?"

"Were the parents able to find happiness again?"

It must be so hard for a parent to loose a child.

I can't even begin to imagine that kind of pain.

To all parents who have lost a child, I'm so very, very sorry for your loss.

Anyway, I know that my "walk-about" wasn't part of any "official" tour, or anything. I just did my own little tour.

Stray · ‎04-20-2013

I guess if I knew my lodgings were temporary, I would opt for cremation.

151949 · ‎03-09-2010

I have been doing a lot of geneology this summer and found that my grandmother had 3 infants that died , one stillborn, and 1 at 17 days old and one at 3 months old.I asked at the catholic cemetery where most of my dad's family is buried how I could find the graves and they told me that back in the day when lots of babies died the church would bury them for free but they would out as many as 8 in one grave and it would be unmarked. In one way - well they weren't buried alone but on the other hand it was so sad that their little lives weren't even recorded or recognized. I had 2 tubal pregnancies and there really was nothing to bury but we chose instead to buy a stained glass window for our church depicting Jesus and the children and put their names on a plaque on the window.

Stray · ‎04-20-2013

I have never gone on a tour but have visited the graves of a few famous people but the most unique cemetery I ever visited was for pets, I think in Long Island. But, they do complete funeral services for animals with coffins, tombs. I walked by and the figures were beautiful, all kinds of animals and many horses and the words on the tombstones made me cry. I believe NYC police horses, k9 and service animals are buried free. It was a long time ago but beautifully maintained and very moving.

sfnative · ‎08-26-2015

Though I haven't been on a cemetery tour, I've self-toured several early 1600s cemeteries in Boston while there for a convention. That experience was not only interesting, but humbling.

Just south of San Francisco is the City of Colma, which we call the cemetery city. On both sides of El Camino Real are a number of cemeteries, most of which have residents who were the builders of the west in the late 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Some of the edifaces are beautiful. **One Halloween, we took a photography class out of City College of San Francisco. Each week we met at one of the Colma cemeteries just at the moment the sun was setting to learn how to take black and white photos in that light and with the subject matter at hand.

When we lived in SoCal and my Dad passed, we laid him to rest at the Forest Lawn in Glendale. (There are several Forest Lawns.) This is the one where Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson reside. The entire cemetery is beautiful and is divided into various sections. It would be a good one to self-tour, but you'd have to wear sensible shoes, as you'll be hiking over hill and dale during your time in the many, many acres of this gorgeous resting place.