Forgotten Graves

It's interesting and depressing at the same time.

I stumbled upon a graveyard in the woods when I was a kid. The headstones were so old they were almost impossible to read. The earliest dates were 1800s to about 1910. It was so old mature trees had grown through the burial plots and some of the caskets or boxes had recessed deeper into the ground.

I could find it today. But there was no sign, no fencing, nothing. Just trees and roots. It could have been a gravesite for slaves or native Americans.

Graveyards are a waste

Everyone should go the Hunter S Thompson route and be shot out of a cannon.

One of my friends growing up had a grave in their back pasture that was there when they bought the property. It just said "Our Dear Father."

A lot of old pioneer cemetaries around here were destroyed by logging operations. THey'd run their heavy equipment through there and afterward there would be no sign of a cemetary.

Here's an interesting Winn Parish grave marker, obviously it replaced an older one.




The cemetary where some of my ancestors were buried has some Union Army soldiers buried there. The adjoining church was used as a hospital after the battle of Mansfield.

We have a graveyard on our hunting lease. It has a lot of children and most of the death were in the late 1800 during one of the pandemics.

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100 years from now, I think we’ll be easy to look up due to this being the Internet age.

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I would think just the opposite would be true. Nobody is keeping hard copy records of anything anymore. If we hit an international computer crash we're screwed. Archaeologists in 500 years will be sifting through newly discovered remains of our civilization and see all kinds of electronic gadgets without power and no explanation of what happened. The history books will write of our generations: "As far as we can tell from the record, nothing happened during this time period."

As for your original line of thought, I find it interesting to walk through the old sections of cemeteries when I find myself at the funeral of a family member or friend these days. Walking through the Hickman Cemetery in Hickman, Kentucky finds me visiting the grave of my grandmother's youngest brother who was killed at Pearl Harbor, and then walking over to my great-grandfather's gravesite that has had the tallest headstone in that particular cemetery since he passed away in September of 1914.

I try to make a point to visit the gravesites of all my direct ancestors at least once every three or four years. It requires a bit of a drive from north Georgia to West Virginia and western Kentucky, but there are always pleasant memories that come flooding back and new memories being made with each trip.

When I'm gone, I doubt that there'll be many visitors apart from my wife, and I imagine she'll only visit once or twice at most. I'll leave no children behind - only nieces and nephews. It's not a bad thing either. There will be no need for mourning by descendants who are never ready for the passing of a parent. I think that can be a good thing. I would prefer to enjoy the love of others while I am here and to leave no one feeling grief when I am gone.

(And no, I'm not planning on kicking the bucket any time soon, so y'all are stuck with my shite posting for awhile longer! )

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Which is why my ashes will be stuffed into 4th of July fireworks at the Prop Stop.

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My uncle had some of his ashes put in shot shells for opening day of duck season.

Then the rest of him went into a reef ball in NC.

I have a family member that is about to spend nearly 30k$ on a headstone. I think it is such a waste!

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Most of us will be forgotten after 4 generations,it might be 3 soon. With young adults waiting longer to get married and have kids, the days of 4 living generations is on its' way out.

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Life expectancy has almost doubled in the last 150 years…