Boston Diary - June 13, Part 2

The waterfront with Bunker Hill Monument (on Breeds Hill, of course) in the background.
This bird was posing for me!
"Old Ironsides," the U.S.S. Constitution. I did go aboard today.

I walked back across the bridge to Hanover Street. I decided to try a different Italian restaurant, but I picked the wrong one. I chose the Florentine Cafe because it was charming with the window boxes of flowers. Inside the Italians were all watching the soccer game on ESPN. Somehow the sports atmosphere ruined the charm of the flowers.
I wanted something with a marinara sauce. Since the only thing on the menu I saw with this type of sauce was spaghetti and meatballs, that's what I ordered. This is after I cut up the meatballs. I wish that I'd gone back to Giacomo's. I'd rate Giacomo's 5/5 and I'd rate the Florentine 3/5 on taste. Not to despair though. Mike's Pastry was nearby so I had my final cannoli of this trip. I wonder if they'd like to put in a branch in East Tennessee? I'm really going to miss Mike's!
The produce looked good!
I also went to King's Chapel Burial Ground.

Gov. Winthrop is one of its most famous burials!
Overview of cemetery.
My last stop (because my feet were too tired to go on much longer) was the Brattle Book Shop, a renowned antiquarian book dealer. I browsed the local history and genealogy sections, but I didn't purchase anything because I don't have room in the luggage for more books! (I'd already found some nice books on the burying grounds in the book section of a gift shop early. Those were the only ones I could make fit!)
Since my feet were "dropping," I decided it was time to take the T back to Quincy and call the hotel for the shuttle. I came back and was saddened to hear of Tim Russert's death. Someone in the NBC news family will have big shoes to fill.

Boston Diary - June 10

Today was the first full day of conference. After breakfast at the hotel, we arrived on campus where we attended devotions and then the first keynote address by Dr. Em Claire Knowles of Simmons. After that, we had a business session, then lunch on campus (pizza), and our first round of presentations. Since I'm primarily in technical services, I went to the cataloging roundtable. After that we had "professional tours." I had signed up for "make your own tour." We went to the Boston Public Garden, Boston Common, and Old Granary Burial Ground rather than touring one of the libraries of the area.

Here are some gorgeous purple flowers that are in the public gardens. They look like oversized purple dandelions but they don't seem to blow quite like the dandelions.

Guess who was swimming?
The ugly duckling became a beautiful swan!
On the common is a tribute to football!
The frog pond with part of the city in the background.
This is the Tremont Temple.
A close-up of the top of Tremont Temple.
Old Granary Burial Ground. It dates back to 1660. This is just one of the gates.
One side of the ground.
Memorial to victims of the Boston Massacre, including Crispus Attucks.
John Hancock.

Paul Revere.
Paul's wife, Sarah Revere.
Mother Goose.
Samuel Adams.
I'm grateful to Charles Ewer for founding New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Ben Franklin's parents.
You just never know when you'll run into some other librarians in an old cemetery!


The spire of the Park Street Church (Congregational).

A view down Park Street.
We came back to Braintree and ate at Legal Seafood. This is the Summer Cape Cod dinner feature. It had lobster, scrod, smoked applewood bacon, and a corn sauce that had tomatoes. YUMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Dessert was Boston Creme Pie!

Bahamas: A Cemetery

This was near the beach where the bonfire is held. We were told that it is a cemetery where only one person was buried. The tour guide did not tell us whose grave it was.

Do You Have Taphophilia?

Dictionary.com defines taphophilia as "a love of funerals, graves, cemeteries." It is derived from the Greek words ταφος (grave) and φιλος (love). In Lisa Rogak's book Stones and Bones of New England: A Guide to Unusual, Historic, and Otherwise Notable Cemeteries (Guilford, Conn.: Globe Pequot, 2004, p. ix), she identifies four reasons persons come to love cemeteries:

1. To learn about a town
2. Quite refuge in summer
3. The "feel of history"
4. To conduct genealogical research

I suppose that the first category of persons are those persons who are interested in regional history. They want to know about the town's early settlers and people. The second category would be the people who go to the garden-type cemeteries to enjoy a nice peaceful picnic. The third category are those who feel that they are getting in touch with the past by being around old tombstones. The fourth category is where most persons researching family history come into the picture although they can certainly enjoy the cemetery for the other three reasons as well.

There is probably a category that Rogak missed. There are persons who enjoy old cemeteries because of the art on the old gravestones. If you've ever read any of Sarah Stewart Taylor's mysteries, you are familiar with her sleuth who is an expert in funerary art.

I confess I have taphophilia. While some of my family members who don't share my interest may think it's a disease, I'm sure that most of the readers of this post will think I'm perfectly normal!

Church Graveyards

Russell D. Moore asks if we should miss them?

Vandalism Discovered

We were in the general area of the Hester Cemetery in Monroe County, Mississippi where my great grandparents and great-great grandparents are buried today so we decided to stop and see if the new fence had been erected. There's an old fence there, but family members had collected money to have a new one installed. It was obvious as we drove up that the old fence was still there, but I told Mom and Dad that I was going to walk in anyway. I wasn't quite prepared for what I discovered. All of the pottery markers were broken, and most were not even there now. Two of the sturdier monuments had been toppled off their base. Some of the older granite markers were broken that had been intact the last time I visited. When we got back to my parents' house, we called the cemetery's caretaker and asked whether or not he was aware of what we had seen. He was not. I hope that he called the sheriff's department to report the vandalism. When I get back home tomorrow, I plan to dig out my sketch of the cemetery and the photos or the CD of photos that I had taken so that we can do some comparisons. I will send the photos to the sheriff's department, if needed. I hope that the vandals are caught, but I have no idea how long they had been this way. I was pretty upset when I made the discovery. Mom came on out and walked around with me.

The Vacationing Genealogist

What do genealogists do on vacations? I'd never really given it much thought until I saw a message to a mailing list by a genealogist today who stated that he was going on vacation. He specified that there would be "no libraries, no courthouses, and no cemeteries." That got me to thinking. When is the last time I took a vacation that met all three of those criteria? I think the answer is "before I started researching the family history."

First of all, I'm a librarian. I love books, and I love to see what other libraries look like. I also like to go in and browse the history and genealogy shelves. If I haven't taken my laptop along on a trip, I may go in to use a computer to check email. (I'll admit that I haven't done this much since wireless has become widely available, but I have done it in the past.)

Courthouses. While I'm slightly less likely to visit a courthouse than a library or cemetery, I have visited courthouses either along the way or near my destination on probably 75% of my vacations of recent years.

Cemeteries. I honestly cannot think of a single vacation that I've been on where I haven't gone to at least one cemetery and probably more than one. They are like magnets. I like to go to them even if I know of no relations buried there. You can sometimes find unusual markers. If I've got a few minutes to spare, you're likely to find me stopping to check out the cemetery. I know a well-known genealogist who was speaking at the FGS conference in Boston in 2006. He had no New England ancestors of his own. While he was out walking around Boston, he found a stone in a cemetery he visited which interested him. (I think it was in Old Copps, but I don't remember for sure.) He went back and researched that individual and her family. I'm not the only genealogist who can't resist a cemetery visit!


In a couple of months, I'll be headed to the Bahamas for a few days. While I don't really have anything that I need to research while there (and my niece who is accompanying me would definitely not want to spend time researching since she's not into family history), I've already read about an historic cemetery that I want to visit. If we happen to see a library, I'm likely to go in just to say I was there and to see what the similarities and differences are between that country's libraries and ours.


In short, I just can't imagine a vacation void of libraries, courthouses, and cemeteries--at least not since I began researching the family history. Of course, those of us who work full-time, welcome the opportunity to use our vacations to further our research.

What about you? Do you visit libraries, courthouses, and cemeteries when you vacation?

Cemetery Visit Inspires Novel

Tom Wiley visited a cemetery near Meridian, Mississippi which inspired him to write The Angels of Lockhart. The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal has an article/review talking about the author's inspiration and giving a brief summary of the book. It sounds like a "must read" for family historians.

Another Incident of Cemetery Vandalism

It's always sad to read about vandalism in cemeteries. This one happened in the Cincinnati community of West Price Hill. About 40 headstones in a Jewish cemetery there were toppled. The article states that some were "pulled from their foundations." The good news is that the stones were not destroyed and the damage can be repaired, but you are left wondering who would do such a thing and why.

Finding Unmarked Graves

This article was in last week's Amory Advertiser. It tells of Emory Morgan and his success in finding unmarked graves. He can even determine the sex of the deceased. [Apparently the article ran in the sister paper The Aberdeen Examiner since that's the byline.]

OOPS - I missed a post somewhere! - Christmas and Deceased Relatives

Did your family visit the cemetery at Christmas? How did your family honor deceased family members at Christmas?

I can honestly say that I don't think we visited the cemetery at Christmas until I started genealogical research. Now, I usually visit cemeteries on my Christmas break. Why? Because the snakes are hibernating! It's the best time to visit them.

I don't think we had a special way of honoring family members although it was always sad on the first Christmas without someone we were used to have being around.

Mystery Series Discovered

I went to McKays, a great used bookstore in Knoxville, yesterday. As I was browsing through the mysteries, the cemetery on a cover caught my eye. Now, we all know that no genealogist can resist a cemetery. I decided to pick up the book and read the "blurb". I discovered that the series was set in New England and features an expert in "funerary art" which basically means that the main character loves graveyards and gravestones as much as a genealogist. This book was the 2nd in the series. I browsed the shelves and located the 3rd in the series. I had to go home and order the 1st in the series from Amazon.com. I also discovered there is a 4th book in the series, but I decided to wait on purchasing it. If I'm lucky, McKays will get the paperback in by the time I'm ready to read it. The author of the series is Sarah Stewart Taylor.

O'Artful Death is the first book in the series and has a Vermont setting.

This is the one that caught my eye. The featured cemetery is Boston's Mount Auburn Cemetery.

The 3rd book in the series has a Concord, Massachusetts setting.

This one is supposed to have a Boston setting as well.

I'm looking forward to trying out this series, and I hope that I'm right about how good it looks, especially since I've already invested in the first three books. The reviews look good!