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Cemetery Volunteers Concerned About Keeping Up Appearances |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Tuesday, 05 July 2005 |
Cemetery Volunteers Concerned About Keeping Up Appearances
Older Graveyards Are Falling Victim To Neglect In Montville, Elsewhere
By EILEEN MCNAMARA
Day Staff Writer
Published on 7/5/2005
New London Day
Montville/Lisbon, CT - In a thick stand of trees off Depot Road Extension in Montville, near the summit of a steep hill above the Thames River, the last resting places of Dr. William Gay and his family are running to ruin.
The trio of small burial grounds, some with graves dating back to the 1700s, is slowly being swallowed by the forest that has grown in the decades since the last Gay family member was buried there in the early 1900s.
John Geary, president of the Montville Historical Society and a graveyard enthusiast, shook his head as he toured the area on a recent sunny afternoon.
“You know, it's a Class D felony to vandalize a cemetery, but it's not illegal to let nature destroy a burial ground, and that's a shame,†he said.
Even the kids who used to ride dirt bikes through these woods, creating deeply grooved tracks that run close to one of the little cemeteries, have abandoned the spot. An old and dilapidated wooden jump, resting near the tall granite obelisk that marks the grave of Dr. Gay, is rotting.
It seems an ignoble setting for the final resting place of the prominent local physician and member of the extended Gay family. Mature trees sprout up between crooked headstones. Years' worth of dead leaves and their compost obscure some of the smaller footstones. An old and moldy flower pot rests on its side at the base of Gay's monument, and most of the wrought-iron fencing that surrounded the small burying ground has rusted away.
•••
Montville, like many old towns in New England, is littered with small, private graveyards that time has seemingly forgotten. They become abandoned when the families who buried their loved ones in them also die or move away, leaving no one responsible for their care. Some are church cemeteries, left to go to weeds after the church disbands or relocates.
Some towns have adopted policies to try to preserve them. Others, including Montville, are dependent on the work of volunteers.
A retired social worker, Geary, who is 70, is among about a half-dozen Montville history buffs concerned about abandoned cemeteries like the Gay graveyards. There are many such places in town, though Geary hasn't come up with an exact number.
Some, like Geary, are driven to honor the memories of those who came before them.
“There should be some respect for the past and our family members,†Geary said. “Cemeteries represent an outdoor museum. They have significant architecture and poetry on the stones. And it's our ancestors.â€
Geary and other members of the historical society are trying to identify and catalogue all of the local cemeteries, particularly the smaller, forgotten ones. They have sketched out a rudimentary map totaling 61 such graveyards.
In some cases they are undertaking preservation efforts, clearing away the trees and weeds that can do so much damage to headstones and monuments. The informal program gets under way mostly in the fall after the foliage has died back and volunteers can better see what debris needs to be cleared. In the spring, they try to concentrate on weeding and mowing.
•••
Geary, a tall, spare man who sports large-rimmed glasses and drives a 10-year-old Nissan pickup, is active and fit. He strides purposely on trails cut through the woods, and he effortlessly pulls large tree limbs and other deadfall away from stone cemetery markers.
But he admits it's difficult to keep up. With so many small family burial grounds, some dating back to colonial times and no longer actively maintained, the task can become overwhelming, he said. The number of historical society members is dwindling, and only a few are involved in the preservation effort.
“These are the tangible traces of the individuals who built the town, from farming families to industrial families,†said Jon Chase, the town historian. “As the face of the town has changed and it has become more suburban and developed residentially, these cemeteries are the physical remains of those who established the town and created the opportunities for future generations.â€
In his role as a caretaker of cemeteries, Geary has a distinct idea of their importance.
“Children have the Halloween images of cemeteries, but actually they're very peaceful places,†he said. “They're like parks or open space. They can be quite beautiful and peaceful places to spend time in. In fact, people used to go to cemeteries and have picnics just to be close to their families.â€
Geary said he'd love to have the town undertake a public works program to help maintain cemeteries. Though he's chairman of the town council, he said he doesn't think it would be appropriate to “use my position to advocate for my pet project.â€
•••
Other towns, however, have taken an active role in preserving their old graveyards.
In Ledyard, the town council established a permanent cemetery committee several years ago. It operates an adopt-a-cemetery program, whereby residents volunteer to help maintain a graveyard of their choosing.
Montville attempted such a program about 20 years ago, Chase said. Participation, however, was infrequent and the program eventually died out.
In Griswold, the town allocates $2,500 annually to repair stones in abandoned cemeteries and undertake routine maintenance. The town also started an adopt-a-cemetery program about five years ago at the urging of First Selectman Paul Brycki, who was disturbed to discover that there were 19 abandoned cemeteries in town and that many were in poor shape.
Town officials take inventory of all the cemeteries twice a year, Brycki said, determining which need more than routine maintenance.
“Our old abandoned cemeteries are in pretty good shape now,†he said.
In Preston, the town's Public Works Department maintains older cemeteries. There are also several residents in town involved in gravestone and graveyard preservation. One is David Oat, who wrote a book about headstones and their markings. Oat, who conducts seminars and creates plaster casts of old gravestones, wrote a self-guided tour of the Norwichtown Graveyard that is available at the cemetery entrance.
Oat said his interest was sparked years ago when he had to help his daughter, then a middle school student, with a project about old headstones. Visiting a local cemetery with her, Oat said, he was struck by the detailed carvings on the stones. They represent, he said, a significant pictorial history of the region's social and cultural development.
“A lot of people in Colonial times couldn't read, so the images were very powerful and they spoke to people about life and the afterlife,†Oat said.
In the early 1700s, when life was more difficult, the skull-and-crossbones image was a popular choice for headstones, Oat said. The image was meant to convey the difficulty and fragility of everyday life, when a sudden illness, accident or problem birth could result in death.
“People today can't connect with things like that, but back then they really struggled just for things like food and shelter,†he said.
Later, as farms and trade became more established, medicine improved and life's burdens eased. Headstone images became more benign, Oat said, and included carvings of winged cherubs, flowers and trees, particularly willows, a symbol of the resiliency of life.
“Life was better for these folks and that was reflected in their imagery,†he said
•••
Ruth Brown, the former director of the Connecticut Gravestone Network and leader of several cemetery preservation efforts in Hartford, has taken an interest in one of Montville's oldest cemeteries. At the corner of routes 85 and 161, the Chesterfield Cemetery was probably the town's first burial ground, she said.
Brown thinks it holds the bodies of pre-Revolutionary War settlers in graves that today are barely discernable and marked by simple fieldstones. The cemetery, she thinks, marks the place where the New London Congregational Church established its so-called North Parish in what later became Montville. She plans to tour the cemetery soon with Geary, part of her research that she expects will lead to an application asking that the Chesterfield Cemetery be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Brown is a passionate advocate of the need to preserve old burying grounds. She fears communities are losing them, either to neglect or to developments.
“When there's thousands of dollars on the line do they stop? Do they care? But it's a matter of respect,†Brown said. “Often the people who live around these cemeteries now are not connected to those who are buried there, so they don't have much interest. But this is our history, and these are the people who gave you the freedoms you have today.â€
One of Geary's favorite graveyards is the Fox Cemetery on Chesterfield Road, also dating to a time before the American Revolution. Surrounded by a tidy stonewall, it is tucked into a corner of a rolling meadow near the town's transfer station. With a pair of flowering and fragrant trees near its center and neatly manicured grass, the Fox Cemetery is as pristine as the Gay graveyards are dilapidated.
Geary admires this place because of the care given by the private association that oversees it. The headstones represent nearly three centuries of burials, with some stones so old the inscriptions can no longer be read.
“They wrote these verses on the stones so future generations could read them and learn from them,†Brown says. “It's a message for the future.â€
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O grave! where is thy victory? O death! where is thy sting?” Alexander Pope
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