Always about this time of year, I find myself driving to Haleigh Cemetery to visit Walt Whitman's Tomb. When the leaves begin to change color, and fall cools the mornings and darkens the evenings, I drift spontaneously to Haleigh and find Whitman's tomb.
Today, our senior group was talking about the labor movement in memorial to Labor Day and I showed some photos of the grave of Peter J. Maguire in Arlington Cemetery in Pennsauken. I visit his memorial monument every Labor Day and leave a wreath or flowers at the foot of his statue.
One of the most interesting essays on Camden Cemeteries was written by Hoag Levins many years ago. I had gone searching for information on the Cemetery in Collingswood alongside the railroad and the old railroad station. I came across it when I was working on one-room schools and there is one on the corner of the street across from the railroad station. Research led me to Hoag Levins essay and that led me to another essay of his on the deteriorated cemetery where many of the Newton Meeting Quakers were buried. They are also buried at the Collingswood cemetery. They are the original settlers from along Newton Creek in what is now Collingswood.
On this visit to Whitman's tomb in Haleigh Cemetery, I was astonished to find the the wrought iron gate and the door to the tomb open and an empty chair seated inside.
I went back to search for Hoag Levin's original essay and found many many more at this web site:
http://historiccamdencounty.com/index.shtml
There were so many interesting essay at this link that I hastened to post about it here on my blog. Some of the ones I had to stop and read were the one on Slave Ships on the Delaware, Camden's Most Neglected Cemetery, Camden's Oldest Cemetery, and many essays on Civil War burials.
It was shocking to me during my family history work to find the cemetery of my paternal Grandfather had also been completely abandoned. Even though I had the plot number and area number, Mount Moriah was so overgrown, it was a jungle, and the original and once beautiful office building and archway were burned and destroyed. Somehow I hadn't imagined such a thing could happen, that on one was responsible for maintaining the graves of family loved ones after time has caused original management to somehow evaporate. Fortunately the other cemeteries of family were intact and well maintained, Laurelview and New Cathedral in Philadelphia.
There has been much outrage about the vandalism and decrepitude of the Camden City cemeteries but apparently not much action.
Perhaps some legal forethought could have been applied to insure proper care of cemeteries when the original operators died out or disappeared. Most people, I assume, today, go in for cremation instead of burial. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment