Something old, something new

 From Hope Cemetery in Barre, VT, where interesting graves are so plentiful it feels like cheating, pyramids (classic) and digital markers (new)!

The four faces of the pyramid are numbered, and side 1 for each provides the names as thus:

If you met Daniel Morrell Vrooman (9-6-1938)/ Jane Elinor Vrooman (3-11-38) and forgot him/her, you have lost nothing: but if you met Jesus Christ and forgot him, and you have lost everything.

We care so much for you that we left this message of hope. Read Dan's stone 2-4, read Jane's stone 2-4 to access the memory medallions. For more information, contact the cemetery office.

The metal cover swivels to reveal a QR code.

Back from the dead

 If you can't let a cemetery blog die -- and then resurrect -- then no blog can.

I was honestly a bit surprised at just how much time had passed, since this ol' thing is never far from my thoughts, and not just at domain renewal time! Still I travel and still I visit cemeteries, so I've got all kinds of photos stored up. (I even got to the famous Hope Cemetery in Barre, VT, the granite capital of the world, in the interim, which is so artful and ingenious it's like shooting fish in a barrel locating cool monuments. Bucket list item, check.)

So, in the spirit of resurrection and life after death, some photos from Hempstead Cemetery, Hempstead, TX, that, were this a different kind of blog, would be spooOooooky and clearly ghosts.

Spoilers: it's not ghosts.

So.

So, obviously, for anyone who visits here at all deliberately and not just wandering in from a Google search, it's been about half an entire year since I last posted, in which I even promised I'd totally do better at this thing. Yeah.

Busy? Not really. I've just experienced a loss of will. I think about this blog a lot and feel guilty for not maintaining it, but honestly I have some negative associations with this whole thing and I haven't gotten past that yet. Stuff happened since I began it, and other stuff didn't happen, and so on. I don't know what to do with it. I don't want to drop it altogether, but at the same time, I obviously don't want to maintain it, either.

At the very least, instead of a wishy-washy overly optimistic hope for the future, here's a note leaving a realistically pessimistic hiatus-style message.

(Gravestone from Utica, NY, Forest Hill Cemetery)

Another mishmash

From Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, GA:

A funky and lovely mausoleum using three or four kinds/colors of stone topped off with a pyramid.

Mishmash of shapes

From Gibson Chapel Rural Cemetery, Cortland, NY:

All kinds of shapes happening on this monument...rounded columns, square posts, little onion domes, the raised bit on top...

It's that time...

It's that time of the year/semester in which I am too busy to barely even remember I have a blog to maintain. On the upside, I've already been planning cemeteries to visit when I go back to Texas for Christmas. In the meantime, here's an oversized headstone from Cortland Gibson Chapel Rural Cemetery in NY:

For some perspective, the guy is a little over 6' (1.8m) tall.

Hardly the biggest or the best headstone around-- what I love is how typical it is in every other regard: normal color, uber-traditional shape...just very, very big.

Symmetry

From Mt. Hope Cemetery in Rochester:

I wish I knew what inspired this unique layout...a background in math? puzzles? design? Compulsive pursuit of symmetry? 

1946
0710
2006
0704 

Charles

William

Fischer

Husband

Father

Brother 

Friend

Matched Set 1

From South Onondaga Cemetery:

A pair of matching headstones with a funky, multi-point star shape on their top edges.

Close-up of each:

Angels

Obviously in cemeteries you're going to find a fair amount of religious imagery. This is a selection of some of the nice angel statues and carvings I've come across.

From St. Agnes Cemetery:

From Forest Hill Cemetery:

I love the giant feather. Here it is in its full context, with wide benches and a quote (Until the day break and the shadows disappear):

This next ornamental sphere is probably one of my absolute favorites:

A pair of angels outside a mausoleum's entrance: (The left one isn't too clear, thanks to the angle of the light.)

From the Chappell Hill Masonic Cemetery:

A sort of medieval-looking angel sitting on...possibly a casket/tomb or perhaps just a bench.

 

This stone for a Minnie Gregg Sharpton has an interesting prismatic shape, a semi-crouched angel, and a medieval-esque sort of flower.

Again, sorry for the angle of the lighting casting weird shadows. This one has a large-winged angel, but what really caught my eye was the name Mamie, which was also the name of my great-grandmother.

Related posts:
A few more names (first image, an angel from Assumption Cemetery)

Even More Shapes

A fresh batch of pointy, shapely geometric-shaped headstones.

From Forest Hill Cemetery:

From North Syracuse Cemetery:

From Woodlawn Cemetery:

From Middleville Cemetery:

Weird shapes

Last year I did a post on very geometric headstones. This is in the same vein but with fewer properly defined shapes and more peculiar ones.


From Middleville Cemetery:

From Forest Lawn Cemetery:
A weird, ridgy, bell/jellyfish-like headstone.

From Woodlawn Cemetery:

From North Syracuse Cemetery:
A very organically-shaped formation reminiscent of wind-eroded rock pillars.

From Forest Hill Cemetery:
This one I honestly thought might be a trashcan while I was still at a distance from it, not that I've seen any trashcans randomly distributed in a cemetery before.

Related post: Shapes and Forms

Shapes and Forms

An assortment of headstones that were strikingly shape-based.

From Oakwood Cemetery in Syracuse, NY:

Cylinders...

A rounded, cylindrical obelisk....

Cylinders and sphere....

From earlier posts: pyramidal mausoleum (second & third images)

From Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, NY:

Cubes...

 

From earlier posts: rectangular prism obelisk (first image)