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Quoting Death in Early Modern England: The Poetics of Epitaphs Beyond the Tomb By Scott L. Newstok
An innovative study of the Renaissance practice of making epitaphic gestures within other English genres. A poetics of quotation uncovers the ways in which writers including Shakespeare, Marlowe, Holinshed, Sidney, Jonson, Donne, and Elizabeth I have recited these texts within new contexts. Visit Palgrave Macmillan and purchase your copy today!
Living by the Dead By Ellen Ashdown with illustrations by Mary Liz Moody.
A memoir about living beside a cemetery--and about the members of my family who came to rest at Roselawn Cemetery in Tallahassee, Florida. Please visit Kitsune Books for more information.
Graveyards of Chicago: The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries By Matt Hucke And Ursula Bielski.
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Epitaphs: The Magazine for Cemetery Lovers By Cemetery Lovers
For information regarding subscriptions, single issues, submission guidelines, deadlines, classifieds or advertising for future issues, please visit The Cemetery Club.
Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints with photography by John Bower and foreword by Claude Cookman
Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture is now available. Please visit Studio Indiana for more information.
West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark
Features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
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Cemeteries: prime site for thieves |
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Tuesday, 21 December 2004 |
Holiday mementos stolen soon after their placement
By Lucinda Dillon Kinkead
Deseret Morning News
There are beautiful holiday decorations here: fir trees with colored lights, crisp bows on presents and stately wreaths with red ribbon. A few paces away, stuffed bears in Santa hats will sing "Jingle Bells" until their batteries run out. Poinsettias dot the landscape all around.
A sign posted at Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park warns thieves of surveillance. Caretakers say Christmastime is a peak time for thievery.
Tom Smart, Deseret Morning News
But tomorrow, these holiday mementos may be gone because thieves work overtime during the Christmas season, and not even these sacred spaces are safe.
The caretakers of Utah cemeteries say 'tis the season for swiping Christmas mementos from people's final resting places.
"Unfortunately there is almost nothing we can do about it," said Robert E. Lindquist, president and general manager of Washington Heights Memorial Park and Memorial Gardens of the Wasatch in Ogden and Lindquist Memorial Park in Layton.
"Unless we notice someone acting suspiciously or with a truckload of flowers and decorations, we have no knowledge if they are taking their own decorations or others."
Even if they catch the thieves, it is hard to determine where the decorations belong, so it is hard to return them to the appropriate place, Lindquist said. All the company can do is keep the items for awhile in case families ask about them.
Memorial Day is the worst for thieves, then Christmas, say local caretakers. The warm weather has brought more relatives out to decorate this year, which might account for more aggressive theft. Whatever the cause, Heather Barnes says she'd like to wring the neck of whoever pilfered holiday mementos from her sister's grave.
"It is so low, so low, for a person to steal from a grave," said Barnes, who this week put up the second batch of smiling Santas and potted flowers on the site at Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary in the Millcreek neighborhood.
"What kind of person does this?" she asks. Barnes imagines that someone probably hopped the fence near the property's northeast corner not far from a sign warning: "Cemetery Under Surveillance. People caught stealing will be prosecuted!"
"Leave these places alone," she emotionally pleads to unknown thieves. "This is just not right. It's Christmas."
Throughout the state and country, cemetery officials report similar situations.
Last weekend in Spanaway, Wash., someone stole 85 Christmas wreaths worth more than $1,000 from grave sites in a single cemetery.
"We have families that will put out a new decoration for their loved one and will come back in a few hours and find it missing," said Brent Gillies of Gillies Funeral Chapel in Brigham City.
"These families have had the misfortune of losing a loved one to an unexpected death," Gillies said. "Is this any way to respect this family? No."
Stealing flowers is a misdemeanor, and Seth Sparks has asked the police to talk to a few people he's noticed stealing from graves over the years, but he doesn't know if anything much happened.
In 30 years as sexton of the Logan City Cemetery, Sparks has never prosecuted anyone for stealing, although he's seen it happen.
Gillies has a sign like the one near Barnes sister's grave, but says he doesn't know how effective it is.
"Hopefully they dissuade some people from stealing, but you never know for sure."
One sexton who didn't want to be named said he chased down a man he'd watched pick his way through the cemetery like "he was shopping at Toys R Us." The thief dropped a lot of the Christmas loot as his pursuer gave chase, but the cemetery caretaker didn't catch the guy.
"I figure some people, it's just better to scare a little anyway," he said. "Anyone with the guts to steal from a grave might be kind of scary."
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595113612,00.html |
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