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Historic Burial Grounds of the New Hampshire Seacoast By Glenn A. Knoblock

Arcadia Publishing has releases a new title in the Images of America series, the historic account of the cemeteries along the New Hampshire Seacoast. This collection is a must for anyone interested in local history, genealogy, or colonial-era art. Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Historic Burial Grounds of the New Hampshire Seacoast and browse other cemetery books!

Green-Wood Cemetery By Alexandra Mosca

Arcadia Publishing announces the release of the historic account of one of New York's most famous cemeteries. Aracdia Publishing's Images of America series has an extensive catalog of many cemetery publications! Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Green-Wood Cemetery.

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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.

Discover a Chicago That Exists Just Beneath the Surface - About Six Feet Under! Take a tour of Chicago's permanent residents! Please visit the Lake Claremont Press website to purchase your copy of Graveyards of Chicago today!

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.

Teacher did nothing wrong PDF Print E-mail
Written by DeadGirl   
Wednesday, 15 November 2006
She, students did not defile bones in Tazewell vault, he says; hearing delayed
Nov 14, 2006

BY REX BOWMAN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

TAZEWELL -- A Bland County high school teacher accused of sneaking into a burial vault with two cheerleaders and handling the bones of a corpse is simply a cemetery tourist who did nothing wrong, her attorney asserted yesterday.

Tazewell's top prosecutor has said the graveyard jaunt came to light when one of the girls went to school and showed a picture of the bones being handled. The 17-year-old has also been charged with defiling the remains. According to Dudley, the 15-year-old no longer faces any charge.

Dudley said Longworth took the girls to the cemetery because she likes to explore the historic districts of communities. She said the girls, both cheerleaders, had nothing to do, so Longworth took them to several places in Tazewell to learn more about their past.

In Pocahontas, they visited the ceme- tery, which was established in 1884 to bury 114 coal miners killed in a mine explosion. Today, the 11-acre cemetery contains more than 5,000 graves.

Dudley said Longworth and the students came upon a vault that had broken open. Yesterday, he showed reporters several of the photos taken during the visit. One shows Longworth poking her head into a large crack in the vault. Two others showed the inside of the vault, apparently in disarray.

"There's no evidence whatsoever that she took any bones from the grave," Dudley said. "There's no photograph that I know of any of the three people in question holding bones."

"Possibly poor judgment, but not to the level of a felony," said lawyer Jim Dudley at the Tazewell County courthouse. "She likes to go to historic cemeteries. My client has toured cemeteries from New Orleans and up the eastern United States."

Candace Lee Longworth, 31, is charged with the felony defiling of a corpse, accused of displacing the bones of a body buried in a historic cemetery in the town of Pocahontas.

Longworth, who also faces two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, was to have had a hearing in Tazewell Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court yesterday. But after she and the two teenagers accused of accompanying her to the vault sat in a courtroom for several hours, prosecutors persuaded a judge to postpone the hearing until Dec. 5.

Outside the courtroom, Dudley said the delay exasperated him because he looks forward to clearing Longworth's name.

Prosecutors allege that Longworth, a biology and earth-science teacher at Rocky Gap High School in Bland, led two girls, 17 and 15, to the vault on Sept. 9; inside, Longworth and one of the students handled the bones of one of the two people buried there.

The vault, which is partially above ground, is more than 100 years old.Dudley further argued that Longworth and the two girls could not have desecrated the vault because it had already been messed up. "It's clear you can't violate the sanctity of something when there's burned wood and broken glass and other debris in it."

Longworth has been suspended from her teaching duties.

John Dawson, who came to court yesterday prepared to testify, said he believes prosecutors should drop the charges. Dawson is a groundskeeper at the cemetery, and he said in April he looked on the grass outside the vault and found a skull.

The skull was put back in the vault but disappeared a short time later. Somebody, he said, had messed with the bones long before Longworth and the students arrived.

"There's kids who go in there all the time and knock over tombstones," Dawson said. "We have to put them back every week. They're the ones who ought to be charged with crimes."

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149191678386
 
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