any other cemetary enthusiasts?

I know this may be a weird hobby. But I enjoy cemetaries, and some tombstones. Sometimes if I go somewhere I try to see a famous one. I like secluded and older cemetaries, but it is not about death, it is about the lives people have led. The beauty in headstones, the sanctity of a cemetary.

There are a lot of neat sites out there that exchange cemetary info. Especially for genealogists.

www.findagrave.com

usgwtombstones.org...

Any others on ATS?

When i was a kid me mam used to go looking around cemetrie's with us when there was time to kill etc

Cant say i have carried it on since growing up but they are very peacefull and interesting places.

I used to love going to cemeteries. And done a lot of weird things in them. When I was a kid, me and my siblings challenged each other to sleep in one. Of course they were scared. I was too but I went in and slept in it anyway. Being secretly a Pagan at the time in a strict Christian household, I actually used the time to practice paganism at the time. The cemetery was on a steep hill and it was just so, so fun. Racing down and up the hill, making up stories about this or that person. Reading the tombstones, even find a few children graves. Getting chased by dogs. lol. It was a lovely time.

Then when I got older, I used to visit them with my girlfriend. We were black-clothes wearing intellectual, Edgar Allan Poe nuts and used to be obsessed with death and the whole Goth shebang. We read poems, made out among other things, and it was great times. I never grew out of my obsession with cemeteries. Just neglected it. I returned two years later and the cemetery was fenced around. I was pretty sad about it.

Interesting to note: in the 1950s or so it is used to be customary for families to take a drive to cemeteries after church. Even more interesting is that during the Victorian era, funerals were as extravagant as weddings are today and people would often to pay their hard earned money in order to give their loved ones a lavish funeral.

Nowadays, people avoid cemeteries, death, etc.

Thanks for the nostalgia!

reply to post by DevilJin


Oddly though, I visit them to see into people's lives, not their deaths. When you research genealogy, you learn amazing things about people long after they are gone.

I don't see morbidity and death, I see lives and histories and ancestors, and think how these people must of affected the world.

Though I do have an interesting story that I told here once a long time ago.

Once when I was really little, just turned three, my mother had us strolling through a cemetary. I real pretty one not to far from us.

I suddenly stopped in front of a stone and said: I knew him, he was shot. My mom then looked at the stone and got goosebumps. It was the tomb of a vet that died in WWII.

[edit on 1-10-2009 by nixie_nox]

I do enjoy visiting cemeteries.

I find it interesting to read the grave stone and imagine what the peoples life might have been like.

It is also a very peaceful feeling I get when in cemeteries.

There is a cemetery a couple of miles from me that has graves from the 1700's. It is one of the scariest places I've ever been in my life.

I guess we must be weird because not many of us enjoy cemeteries. Thats OK I'm weird anyway.

dont like cemeteries too much. My friends blindfolded me once as a teenager and took me to a cemetery and left me. Kind of freaked me out.

But the cemetery here has an engine as the tombstone. Back in the 50's a teenager was killed in a car accident, apparently he loved his truck.

reply to post by nixie_nox



Here in the south west and Mexico, Nov. 2nd is "Dia Los Muertos" day of the dead. Mainly an Hispanic festival where Death is celebrated with skull sugar confections, dancing etc. in Graveyards, dancehalls and village squares.

Here is a couple looks at Dia Los Muertos.www.youtube.com...


www.youtube.com...


Hardcore in Houston this year.






There is a graveyard near my house, in my village that has graves that date back to the 1700's. I ride my bike thru it daily. I'll video the area and upload it soon.

[edit on 8-10-2009 by whaaa]

My grandparents on my mother's side are buried at Forest Lawn in Glendale, CA, the same one where Michael Jackson and many, many famous people are buried. You wanna talk about an interesting cemetary.

It's a very beautiful place to see with all the hills and stuff.

Peace

I sometimes do stop and ponder the lives that lie beneath the ground in a cemetery. I wonder where they went, what they did, what they saw, what was their profession. Sometimes you might find a young person in a cemetery and you automatically know the pain and anguish their parents must have undergone. I wonder where their spirits are right this second though most of all.

I used to have a room that overlooked a really nice cemetery - people were dying to get in there..... Boom boom :bnghd:


Nah seriously it was a nice one - nice variety of big old trees, I had a bay window and it looked pretty cool what with seeing all the different weather conditions and all - the fog was pretty cool!

All the other streets in that area were terraced, so any other view would look out onto a street and the other houses, that's kinda why I chose to rent in that house - I had to live within walking distance from uni and work so it was the best all round.

The land lords had these net curtains up, so pretty soo I'd taken them down and stuffed them up on to of the cupboard, they didn't mind untill when I was moving out and they were showing the rooms to other possible tenants a group of Asain girls wanted to rent the whole house... Well they took one look in my room, the curtains were open and the sun was brilliant - they saw the grave yard in all it's glory and they turned heal and left Apparently they saw that as serious bad luck

Ahh well their loss, it was a nice quirky house to live in - not typical student digs.