Cemeteries

It may seem morbid to some, but I have always thought that cemeteries are some of the most beautiful places.  Memorial Park in Highlands comes to mind, with its gentle grassy slope and its views off to the west.  Even though loved ones are buried there, it is a peaceful and lovely place.  I have even written two or three poems set in that cemetery.

Across the expanse of marble-marked grass
Morning birds were singing in the distant trees.

Atlantic Beach is a short distance from Beaufort, where my great aunt lived before moving to a retirement home in Florida.  She was my father’s sister, whom we always called Aunt Marion, and I vaguely remember visiting her there well over 50 years ago.  I think she even took us to the famous Sanitary Fish Market and Restaurant.  I had always wondered where she lived, and Martha, who is able to find things on the computer that are difficult for most of us, discovered that she had lived on Ann Street.  We found the tiny frame house easily enough but it did not ring any bells in my memory.  Then Martha found that she was buried not far away, in Ocean View Cemetery.  It took us three visits, including a final stop at the Beaufort Town Hall to consult a map produced by a helpful woman named Lorraine, before we found where she and her husband George were buried.  And what a surprise!  Next to her plot was the grave of Edward Strembel, her brother whom we called Uncle Ed, and whom I have an even vaguer memory of visiting when I was perhaps ten years old when he lived in Valley Stream, Long Island.

It was a very nice cemetery, and while trying to find Aunt Marion’s headstone, we saw simple headstones and elaborately carved ones, as well as all of those curious things that people place on graves.  There was a statue of a little dog, and one of the headstones had a very clear portrait etched into it of a beautiful young woman.

But I think my favorite cemetery is the Old Burying Ground, deeded to the Town of Beaufort but dating to 1709, which I visited last Wednesday.  We had been to the N. C. Maritime Museum to hear an interesting lecture about the Menhaden Industry here.  As with many of their presentations, it was very detailed, but I can say that we can now regale anyone we meet with stories about this tiny fish that was harvested not for food but for its oil and its qualities as a fertilizer.

The Old Burying Ground contains graves dating to the Civil War and even to the Revolutionary War, and the Historical Society gives tours and distributes an interesting brochure about those who are buried there.  We have visited before and I wrote a long poem about it which I may publish some day.  On Wednesday, I found the gates locked, though, and went to the Historical Society’s Visitor Center to ask about it.  “Oh, that happens all the time!” a volunteer told me.  “Let me get the police to go by and unlock it.”  I hadn’t thought it would require a 9-1-1 call for me to gain access, but when I returned a while later the gates were wide open.

Little Virginia Dill’s grave is near the front gate, and her stone has a sleeping child on its top.  She died of yellow fever and was buried in a glass-top casket, for some reason.  The story goes that the grave was dug up by vandals and the body in the casket was intact, but as soon as they opened it the body disintegrated.

 
An unnamed British naval officer is buried toward the back.  He died on board ship in Beaufort harbor, and not wanting to be “buried with his boots off,” he was buried standing up in full uniform.

There are many such stories buried in this shady place under live oak trees and wisteria vines.  Sarah Gibbs was married to the seaman Jacob Shepard, who disappeared on his ship and was presumed dead.  After a time, she married Nathaniel Gibbs and had a child with him, but after an absence of several years Jacob returned to find Sarah married to another man.  The two men agreed that Sarah would remain with Gibbs as long as she lived, but must spend eternity at Jacob’s side, which is where she is buried.

Not far from the British Soldier is a grave containing sailors who froze to death when the Crissie Wright was wrecked in January of 1886.  It is marked by only three or four bricks.  “Cold as the night the Crissie Wright went ashore,” is a phrase still used around this part of the coast.

One of the most “popular” graves is the Girl in a Barrel of Rum.  An English family in the 1700s moved to Beaufort with an infant daughter, and when she grew up she wanted to see her homeland, finally persuading her father to take her.  His mother made him promise that he would return the girl safely, but she died on the voyage back to Beaufort.  Her father could not bear the idea of a burial at sea, and so he kept his promise by buying a barrel of rum from the captain and placing her in it for burial.  The grave is always covered with flowers, stuffed animals, beads, seashells, and other tokens of affection.  But according to one account, the story doesn’t end there.  “There are those who say that the figure of a young girl can be seen running and playing between the graves in the Old Burying Grounds at night.  They say that the tributes left on the young girl’s grave are often moved about the graveyard at night, often found sitting balanced on top of other gravestones or in places they couldn’t have moved to by just the wind.”

(Time for some spooky music to play in the background.)  It is a spooky place.  But a very beautiful place.  As are all cemeteries.