I dragged my poor husband out to Sharp Cemetery after work on Wednesday to attempt my first set of data for The Gravestone Project.
I chose that location over Killeen City Cemetery because Sharp Cemetery is smaller and more remote, which means there were likely to be fewer people to be offended by and/or ask awkward questions about what those two crazy people were doing to the gravestones with all those weird instruments.
The "new" GPS (actually a fifteen-year-old Magellan GPS 2000 in suprisingly good condition, which is very basic but does what I need it to do) works pretty well if you give it a minute or to to pick up enough satellites. I knew this already because I spent Wednesday morning at work playing with it, and I now have a partial GPS plot of the funeral home to show for it. Locations were easy enough as a result.
Determining the direction the gravestones were facing was also pleasantly simple despite the fact that I forgot to bring a compass (no excuse since I own three or four) thanks to the fact that Sharp Cemetery is coveniently laid out on pretty close to exact east-west lines (who needs a compass when you have a beautiful sunset because you put off the trip until too late in the day?) so all of the graves are facing either due east or due west, and it's not hard to tell those two apart, especially in the late evening.
Measurements were slightly more problematic. I had acquired a nice set of digital calipers on Amazon.com, and except for one afternoon of enthusiastic fiddling with them, I hadn't really spent as much time practicing measurements as I should have before actually going to the cemetery. I quickly discovered that the digital calipers were technically easier to read than the analog ones I had used back in grad school, but slightly trickier; I must have measured the same spot on one particular marker five or six times, because I kept getting different readings on my calipers.
Determining ground level- which is important in the placement of the measurements, and which also has to be recorded if you're measuring a gravestone on a pedestal, which most of the marble ones at Sharp Cemetery seem to be- was also a little tricky thanks to uneven ground and thick tufts of dried grass. I had forgotten something vital about field work of any sort, in any discipline- it's never as cut-and-dried or neat as the plan says it should be.
By the time we had to leave, after less than an hour of working time- we were late to our planned dinner anyway- we only had one set of measurements which I didn't quite trust, and I was grumpy, frustrated, and disappointed. My remarkably patient husband chalked it up to a learning experience and made a few helpful suggestions, mostly centered on practice, instruction-reading, and a few more items of equipment, like a small level.
With that in mind, I'm hoping to make another attempt this weekend, hopefully with better and more useful results.
Showing posts with label Sharp Cemetery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sharp Cemetery. Show all posts
09 September 2011
06 September 2011
Wednesday's Child: Ruby Lee Overton
Ruby Lee Overton (1910-1914) has a pretty marble gravestone beneath a tree in Sharp Cemetery, with a bench alongside it. It's a pleasant and peaceful spot.
Her stone is engraved with a dove carrying an olive branch, imagery reminiscent of the Noah's Ark story.
The allusion is particularly evocative combined with her epitaph, which reads, "Our darling one hath gone / before to greet us on the / blissful shore."
Reading that verse and looking at the image of the dove, I thought of the story of the dove being sent out from Ark to seek dry land- shore- and returning with an olive branch as proof of its presence; compare this to the idea of a little child going before her parents to a metaphysical "shore"; the image of the dove and its assurance that something was there waiting must have been spiritually comforting in that context.
RUBY LEE
Dau. of
J.A. & M.A.
OVERTON
BORN
OCT. 22, 1910
DIED
JULY 11, 1914
Our darling one hath gone
before to greet us on the
blissful shore.
The sources I have read on gravestone iconography describe the lamb as a symbol of innocence primarily used on children's gravestones, but in my wanderings through local cemeteries, I have so far noticed that doves seem to be as common a symbol on children's graves as lambs, though neither doves nor lambs seem to be exclusively children's symbols, as I have mentioned before.
I am in the process of collecting some data on this to try to determine whether a pattern of age or gender distribution in the use of either of these symbols actually exists, at least in my area.
Her stone is engraved with a dove carrying an olive branch, imagery reminiscent of the Noah's Ark story.
The allusion is particularly evocative combined with her epitaph, which reads, "Our darling one hath gone / before to greet us on the / blissful shore."
Reading that verse and looking at the image of the dove, I thought of the story of the dove being sent out from Ark to seek dry land- shore- and returning with an olive branch as proof of its presence; compare this to the idea of a little child going before her parents to a metaphysical "shore"; the image of the dove and its assurance that something was there waiting must have been spiritually comforting in that context.
RUBY LEEDau. of
J.A. & M.A.
OVERTON
BORN
OCT. 22, 1910
DIED
JULY 11, 1914
Our darling one hath gone
before to greet us on the
blissful shore.
The sources I have read on gravestone iconography describe the lamb as a symbol of innocence primarily used on children's gravestones, but in my wanderings through local cemeteries, I have so far noticed that doves seem to be as common a symbol on children's graves as lambs, though neither doves nor lambs seem to be exclusively children's symbols, as I have mentioned before.
I am in the process of collecting some data on this to try to determine whether a pattern of age or gender distribution in the use of either of these symbols actually exists, at least in my area.
03 September 2011
25 August 2011
The Mourning Lamb
Gravestones become ubiquitous; I photograph them, transcribe them, look for connections between the names on them, and later I write about them and read about them; the image of the grave and the gravestone loses some of the stark emotional impact it has for others (this is doubly true for me since I work at a funeral home and spend large chunks of my off time with a volunteer canine team looking for the missing and most often dead).
I almost forget, sometimes, what it is I'm doing, and the reminders, when they come, are powerful.
For instance, I was flipping through some of my pictures from Sharp Cemetery just now, and came across this one, marking the grave of fourteen year old Ethan Jordan (d. 1889).
I'm struck by the lamb's pose and the emotion it conveys. Most of the lamb images I have seen on gravestones are soft and peaceful in their outlines but more formal in their poses; they are clearly resting lambs, but also clearly posed. Ethan's lamb, with its head hung low, appears to be mourning.
His epitaph also speaks of deeply felt grief.
(photography by dunerat)
I almost forget, sometimes, what it is I'm doing, and the reminders, when they come, are powerful.
For instance, I was flipping through some of my pictures from Sharp Cemetery just now, and came across this one, marking the grave of fourteen year old Ethan Jordan (d. 1889).
I'm struck by the lamb's pose and the emotion it conveys. Most of the lamb images I have seen on gravestones are soft and peaceful in their outlines but more formal in their poses; they are clearly resting lambs, but also clearly posed. Ethan's lamb, with its head hung low, appears to be mourning.
His epitaph also speaks of deeply felt grief.
Here lies the dearest bud
That e'er to man He giveth.
If thou wouldst know his
Present state,
Repent and seek the
Father in heaven.
That e'er to man He giveth.
If thou wouldst know his
Present state,
Repent and seek the
Father in heaven.
(photography by dunerat)
13 August 2011
A willow tree: Since thou canst no longer stay...
On a recent trip to Sharp Cemetery, I spotted the only example of willow iconography I have seen in central Texas.
Willow tree images on gravestones are less common in this corner of the world than in others, possibly that's because willow trees themselves are less common in this corner of the world, making them a less relevant symbol for most people.
It seems worth pointing out that sheep are also not terribly common here (though not especially rare), but the weight of religious discourse behind the lamb symbolism ensures its relevance and hence its common presence on gravestones even here.
This gravestone also has one of the sweetest and saddest epitaphs I have ever read.
Her husband is buried beside her.
Willow tree images on gravestones are less common in this corner of the world than in others, possibly that's because willow trees themselves are less common in this corner of the world, making them a less relevant symbol for most people.
It seems worth pointing out that sheep are also not terribly common here (though not especially rare), but the weight of religious discourse behind the lamb symbolism ensures its relevance and hence its common presence on gravestones even here.
This gravestone also has one of the sweetest and saddest epitaphs I have ever read.
HANNAH L.
Wife Of
G.L. PATTON
Born
Aug. 13, 1835
Died
Dec. 27, 1890.
Since thou canst no longer stay
To cheer me with thy love
I hope to meet with thee again
In your bright world above.
Wife Of
G.L. PATTON
Born
Aug. 13, 1835
Died
Dec. 27, 1890.
Since thou canst no longer stay
To cheer me with thy love
I hope to meet with thee again
In your bright world above.
Her husband is buried beside her.
10 August 2011
McBryde Cemetery
I stumbled upon McBryde Cemetery by accident a couple of weeks ago.
The original purpose of my after-work expedition was to fulfill a couple of photo requests at Sharp Cemetery for someone on Find-A-Grave.
Sharp Cemetery is a short drive out of town, though it felt longer with the hundred-plus degree temperature and the air conditioner in my car enthusiastically blowing warm air at me the entire way.
Almost to my turn, I passed the brown Historical Marker sign pointing to McBryde Cemetery. As with pretty much every Historical Marker sign I pass (unless I actually have time to stop), I made a mental note of it as a possible stop for a later trip. Incidentally, it's sort of interesting how many of those signs in Texas are for cemeteries; it would be interesting to find out how other places' Historical Marker ratios compare.
I started intrepidly down Sharp Cemetery Road despite the yellow sign proclaiming it a dead end (clever, no?), and drove for a long while down a tree-shaded dirt road lined by a crumbling stone wall of loose construction and indeterminate age, but came up short at the second cattleguard flanked by a firm-sounding POSTED: No Trespassing sign, just in the shadow of someone's house. Unwilling to risk getting shot, or even shot at, I declared discretion the better part of valor and sadly turned around.
As I turned off Sharp Cemetery Road and back onto the highway, I suddenly remembered how close McBryde Cemetery had been and decided, on a whim, to stop and check it out. I had no idea whether there were any photo requests open for McBryde Cemetery, or whether there was anything left to contribute to the site's record on Find-A-Grave, but it seemed worth a try. Besides, I was unwilling to let go of my afternoon outing, and I decided it would make good photography practice even if I got no other results. I had come all this way in my poorly-air-conditioned car to photograph gravestones, after all.
McBryde Cemetery is set on a lonely-feeling patch of land just off the highway, sparsely shaded by just a few small trees. It feels very open and on the day I visited was very bright and hot, archetypal central Texas ranchland.
It contains thirteen interments, six couples and one individual, all members of the intermarried McBryde and Hoover families.
Genealogically and culturally, the cemetery is interesting because it contains multiple generations of a single lineage. In terms of my personal interest in mortuary iconography, my attention was mostly captured by the oldest four interments, two pairs of heavily weathered markers facing west set in the stone walls enclosing two pairs of burial plots.
It is interesting to note that although members of these couples opted for individual burials- not only with individual graves and markers, but with the graves clearly delineated by roughly chest-high stone walls- rather than double interments and double markers (the choice of most of their descendants interred here), each pair of grave markers shares a common design, so that it is readily apparently from the images on the gravestones which person belonged with which in life.
McBryde Cemetery's first occupant, Jane W. (Gore) McBryde (1826-1885) shares a resting lamb image with her husband Mancel Theodore "M.T." McBryde (1821-1896).
Jane W.
M.T. McBryde
Born
july 17, 1821.
Died
Nov. 2, 1885.
Blessed is he that
considereth the Poor.
The Lord will consider him.
The couple died over a decade apart; note the differences in the individual artwork of the lambs; it is possible that either the gravestones were not the work of the same manufacturer, or the style changed in the intervening years.
It seems unusual to see the lamb imagery used for adult gravestones, since the sources I have read usually attribute the lamb to the symbolism of children and their innocence. I have seen lambs on several other adults' gravestones in this area, though, and just as commonly I have seen doves on children's gravestones, though they too appear on adult gravestones. Part of the goal of my cemetery wandering for the forseeable future will be collecting data to assess whether there is an observable correlation between symbolism and age at death in nineteenth-century Texas gravestone iconography.
Interred at the elder McBryde's right are his son Robert H. McBryde (1860-1887) who was apparently born in the same year his grandfather- whose name he shares- died, and Robert's wife Nancy Paralee (Story) McBryde (1867-1951).
The younger pair of McBrydes share a clasped-hands motif. Like the lambs on the older two gravestones, these two are markedly different in style over the sixty-four year gap between them.
Paralee Story
McBryde
Wife of
R.H. McBryde
Born
Oct. 15, 1867
Died
May 6, 1951
At rest in heaven.
Robert McBryde's gravestone is substantially less weathered than his wife's despite being the older of the two.
Robert H. McBryde
Born
Nov. 2, 1860,
Died
Oct. 7, 1887.
The Lord giveth and the Lord
hath taken away. Blessed be
the name of the Lord.
The two images do share obvious gender differences in the sleeves on either hand, particularly Robert McBryde's; some gender cues are even obvious in the relative size of the fingers on the clasping hands.
This was my first cemetery outing without my husband and his photography skills, which meant it was my first attempt at gravestone photography. Despite some mostly theoretical training in crime scene photography (although we're required to know the rudiments in theory, the dog team seldom actually gets called on to take pictures on-scene), most of my prior photography experience was in the artifact lab under very controlled lighting conditions. The heavily slanted late evening sunlight cast long shadows and slightly awkward glare, which presented a real challenge. My own shadow unfortunately ended up in most of the east-facing photos; in retrospect, this could have been prevented if I had figured out sooner how to operate the zoom on my husband's camera.
Thanks to a very high-resolution camera and a bit of careful cropping, I still ended up with acceptable pictures of most of the gravestones.
It turned out that there were no photo requests for McBryde Cemetery, but the trip was still an enjoyable and interesting experience, and I came away with some nice photographs and a couple of gravestone photography lessons:
1. The zoom lens is a good way to keep your own shadow out of the images.
2. Time of day is important, otherwise shadows and glare get in the way.
As a side note, I learned the next day that cemeteries located on private property in the state of Texas are legally accessible by anyone for reasonable purposes during reasonable hours, and the landowner is legally obligated to allow right-of-way for such access.
I have since made several pleasant and productive visits to Sharp Cemetery.
The original purpose of my after-work expedition was to fulfill a couple of photo requests at Sharp Cemetery for someone on Find-A-Grave.
Sharp Cemetery is a short drive out of town, though it felt longer with the hundred-plus degree temperature and the air conditioner in my car enthusiastically blowing warm air at me the entire way.
Almost to my turn, I passed the brown Historical Marker sign pointing to McBryde Cemetery. As with pretty much every Historical Marker sign I pass (unless I actually have time to stop), I made a mental note of it as a possible stop for a later trip. Incidentally, it's sort of interesting how many of those signs in Texas are for cemeteries; it would be interesting to find out how other places' Historical Marker ratios compare.
I started intrepidly down Sharp Cemetery Road despite the yellow sign proclaiming it a dead end (clever, no?), and drove for a long while down a tree-shaded dirt road lined by a crumbling stone wall of loose construction and indeterminate age, but came up short at the second cattleguard flanked by a firm-sounding POSTED: No Trespassing sign, just in the shadow of someone's house. Unwilling to risk getting shot, or even shot at, I declared discretion the better part of valor and sadly turned around.
As I turned off Sharp Cemetery Road and back onto the highway, I suddenly remembered how close McBryde Cemetery had been and decided, on a whim, to stop and check it out. I had no idea whether there were any photo requests open for McBryde Cemetery, or whether there was anything left to contribute to the site's record on Find-A-Grave, but it seemed worth a try. Besides, I was unwilling to let go of my afternoon outing, and I decided it would make good photography practice even if I got no other results. I had come all this way in my poorly-air-conditioned car to photograph gravestones, after all.
McBryde Cemetery is set on a lonely-feeling patch of land just off the highway, sparsely shaded by just a few small trees. It feels very open and on the day I visited was very bright and hot, archetypal central Texas ranchland.
It contains thirteen interments, six couples and one individual, all members of the intermarried McBryde and Hoover families.
Genealogically and culturally, the cemetery is interesting because it contains multiple generations of a single lineage. In terms of my personal interest in mortuary iconography, my attention was mostly captured by the oldest four interments, two pairs of heavily weathered markers facing west set in the stone walls enclosing two pairs of burial plots.
It is interesting to note that although members of these couples opted for individual burials- not only with individual graves and markers, but with the graves clearly delineated by roughly chest-high stone walls- rather than double interments and double markers (the choice of most of their descendants interred here), each pair of grave markers shares a common design, so that it is readily apparently from the images on the gravestones which person belonged with which in life.
McBryde Cemetery's first occupant, Jane W. (Gore) McBryde (1826-1885) shares a resting lamb image with her husband Mancel Theodore "M.T." McBryde (1821-1896).
Jane W.Wife of
M.T. McBryde
Born
June 14, 1826,
Died
Aug. 31, 1885.
God gave. He [unreadable]. He will
restore. He doeth all things
well.
M.T. McBryde
Born
June 14, 1826,
Died
Aug. 31, 1885.
God gave. He [unreadable]. He will
restore. He doeth all things
well.
M.T. McBrydeBorn
july 17, 1821.
Died
Nov. 2, 1885.
Blessed is he that
considereth the Poor.
The Lord will consider him.
The couple died over a decade apart; note the differences in the individual artwork of the lambs; it is possible that either the gravestones were not the work of the same manufacturer, or the style changed in the intervening years.
It seems unusual to see the lamb imagery used for adult gravestones, since the sources I have read usually attribute the lamb to the symbolism of children and their innocence. I have seen lambs on several other adults' gravestones in this area, though, and just as commonly I have seen doves on children's gravestones, though they too appear on adult gravestones. Part of the goal of my cemetery wandering for the forseeable future will be collecting data to assess whether there is an observable correlation between symbolism and age at death in nineteenth-century Texas gravestone iconography.
Interred at the elder McBryde's right are his son Robert H. McBryde (1860-1887) who was apparently born in the same year his grandfather- whose name he shares- died, and Robert's wife Nancy Paralee (Story) McBryde (1867-1951).
The younger pair of McBrydes share a clasped-hands motif. Like the lambs on the older two gravestones, these two are markedly different in style over the sixty-four year gap between them.
Paralee Story McBryde
Wife of
R.H. McBryde
Born
Oct. 15, 1867
Died
May 6, 1951
At rest in heaven.
Robert McBryde's gravestone is substantially less weathered than his wife's despite being the older of the two.
Robert H. McBryde Born
Nov. 2, 1860,
Died
Oct. 7, 1887.
The Lord giveth and the Lord
hath taken away. Blessed be
the name of the Lord.
The two images do share obvious gender differences in the sleeves on either hand, particularly Robert McBryde's; some gender cues are even obvious in the relative size of the fingers on the clasping hands.
This was my first cemetery outing without my husband and his photography skills, which meant it was my first attempt at gravestone photography. Despite some mostly theoretical training in crime scene photography (although we're required to know the rudiments in theory, the dog team seldom actually gets called on to take pictures on-scene), most of my prior photography experience was in the artifact lab under very controlled lighting conditions. The heavily slanted late evening sunlight cast long shadows and slightly awkward glare, which presented a real challenge. My own shadow unfortunately ended up in most of the east-facing photos; in retrospect, this could have been prevented if I had figured out sooner how to operate the zoom on my husband's camera.
Thanks to a very high-resolution camera and a bit of careful cropping, I still ended up with acceptable pictures of most of the gravestones.
It turned out that there were no photo requests for McBryde Cemetery, but the trip was still an enjoyable and interesting experience, and I came away with some nice photographs and a couple of gravestone photography lessons:
1. The zoom lens is a good way to keep your own shadow out of the images.
2. Time of day is important, otherwise shadows and glare get in the way.
As a side note, I learned the next day that cemeteries located on private property in the state of Texas are legally accessible by anyone for reasonable purposes during reasonable hours, and the landowner is legally obligated to allow right-of-way for such access.
I have since made several pleasant and productive visits to Sharp Cemetery.
03 August 2011
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