I have a lot of fears, guys. Lots of them. Heights, closed spaces, dense crowds, mob mentality, dentists scraping my teeth with those metal tools, the entire bottom of the airplane somehow falling off at 30,000 feet, the fact that every day my children are growing closer and closer to adulthood and I'm doing a terrible job at preparing them ... Some of those fears are more rational than others. But one fear I think we've ALL had at one time or another is the fear of being buried alive. What do you mean I've never had that fear? Seriously? Hmm. So that one's jus[...]
Category
Cemeteries
1 There is something awesome about places. They are immovable and, in some very basic ways, unchangeable. A place will always be in the same... well, place. Years go by. Decades, centuries. And a place just sits there, letting things walk on it. People, animals. A place patiently listens to the ever-changing wildlife or people that inhabit it. Maybe those people remain for a long time or maybe their presence is only there for a transient moment. Some places--those cities that "never sleep"--are inundated with a constant din of conversation and noise. I often wonder[...]
Hello from Boston! I've been in the city for the past week attending a design conference, but the place is so beautiful and there are so many adorable little puritan cemeteries I just had to bring some beautiful taphology home for you. The focus of today's post is Old Granary Burial Ground. Third oldest cemetery in Boston, it was founded in 1660, and holds 2,345 marked graves. Despite the small number, it's assumed that nearly 5,000 souls were laid to rest here, among them three signers of the Declaration of Independence (Sam Adams, John Hancock, Robert Tre[...]
So apparently this is not a new thing, but somehow I'd never heard of it. Last week I asked my husband what I should write about for this post and he said, "The death coaster." And I laughed. But he didn't. And then we argued for a good five minutes about whether or not "the death coaster" was a thing. Finally I broke down and Googled it. It's a THING, guys. I mean, the idea of it is a thing. And the science behind it is solid. This video explains everything about it. My only real lingering question is: who would run it? Like, a doctor--a medical professional? Or[...]
Mining doesn't have the “strike it rich” opportunities these days, but the folklore and legends are still a part of stories. Many of the tales in America were brought over from Cornish and German miners who came to America to work in the silver, coal, and gold mines around the country. So let’s do some exploring! Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine is a supposedly rich gold mine either in the Superstition Mountains near Phoenix, Arizona, or somewhere in Mexico. The legend goes that an immigrant named Jacob Waltz found the mine and then took his secret[...]
The Victorians had a very peculiar tradition of picnicking in cemeteries. After the death of Queen Victoria’s hubby in 1861, the entire country donned their mourning attire. For forty years. (To be fair, Victoria only asked her court for three years of goth gear. Moved by her dedication to Prince Albert, they persisted in continuing the tradition until the queen’s death, at which point the custom was put to rest, and so began the Edwardian period in Britain.) I’d like to say the tendency to accessorize all in black, cover the household mirrors with black[...]