So I’m a rabid genealogist and cemeteries are like my second home.  I think this has become a trend in recent years – findagrave.com seems to be growing exponentially.  Tracing the different fads and fashions in headstones through history is fascinating.

We’re going to Boston in October and I’m really hoping to go to the Eliot Burial Ground in Roxbury.  One of my favorite headstones is there – Theodora Parke, sister-in-law of my eighth great grand-uncle.  It’s so ‘Beetlejuice.’

My favorite cemetery in Central Texas is the Pin Oak Cemetery outside Muldoon in Fayette County.  It’s also known as the Old Blackjack Springs Cemetery.  It’s one of the oldest in Fayette County; at least half the folks buried their are my kin in some way or another.  It’s about two miles off County Road 609, at the end of a cow path.  The first time I was there was in 1975, when I was 11.  My mother was driving my father’s brand new Dodge Charger and we were all convinced the rocks and ruts would take out the muffler.  My great grandmother used to say when she was a girl, they’d ride out there on horse back for a picnic and a chance to commune ‘folks gone, but not forgotten.’  I can certainly see why.

Some of the graves there are in elaborate gated areas and above-ground ‘tombs,’ like this one for Dr. Kenzie Routh, my 1st cousin, five times removed –

And some are just concrete slabs, like this one for Enoch Jesse McNatt, my second great grand uncle –

But I think my favorite grave there belongs to ‘Ocean Wave Hamilton.’  I look at that marker and the questions are just endless…