Pine Forest Pet Cemetery

What’s a vacation without a trip to a cemetery? If you’re a regular reader of The Cemetery Traveler, you know that I usually combine family trips to the Jersey shore with a stop at a couple graveyards. This past July was no exception.

Now, I don’t subject my family to my eccentricities – I usually sate my cemeterial desires early in the morning, before my wife and six-and-a-half year old daughter awaken. This July trip was no exception. During a few days’ vacation on Long Beach Island, New Jersey, I took an early-morning trip inland, through Manahawkin, up Route 70, to the little rural town of Warren Grove. The Internet told me there was a pet cemetery there. Truth be told, without the GPS in my smartphone, I never would have found this place. The Pine Forest Pet Cemetery is so far off the beaten path that my GPS couldn’t map the roads through the Pine Barrens (the Wharton National Forest) when I got within a mile of the place.

Gazebo at center of  the Pine Forest Pet Cemetery

I found it though. Very rural, quite large (as pet cemeteries go) - 26 acres, says their website. It is very well-cared for, and tastefully appointed. A small gazebo at center, with maybe a hundred graves spread out from there. The pine forest surrounds it on three sides. The mostly canine grave markers (there are some felines too) are arranged in rows and are mostly flush-to-the-ground memorial park style, perhaps indicative of buried cremains. There were a few monuments, of sorts - heartfelt things, small sculptures, handmade remembrances, small plaster statues of dogs with wings.

"Wishbone," the Hearing-Ear Dog

If you stop and read some of the headstone inscriptions, epitaphs, you’ll agree some are incredibly poignant. Witness the inscription on the “hearing-ear dog” headstone above. At the back of the cemetery is a special K-9 grave plot, reserved for police dogs who had served on the Stafford Township, New Jersey police force. I was surprised to see this ceramic badge on several of the grave markers.

This is the same type of medallion used for the death portraits we see on humans' grave stones.

Established in 1984, “This serene twenty-six acre tract of land is nestled in the forest zone of the protected Pine Barrens. It has been set aside to honor our departed pets that fill our hearts and minds with loving memories.” - from the Pine Forest Pet Cemetery website

"Born to Love, Trained to Serve, Loyal to the End"

 

“Pet Memorial Sunday” – September 11, 2016

If you are a pet owner – I caught myself there – “pet owner” sounds a bit crass to describe the humans involved in this memorialization of their animals. I should instead say “If you have an animal companion”…. or are just interested in the type of person who would go to the trouble of creating a permanent memorial to an animal, consider a visit to Pine Forest Pet Cemetery the second Sunday of September. You can witness their annual “Pet Memorial Sunday" - this year, it will be held on September 11, 2016. See their link for more detail.

"Heaven is a bit brighter now"

If you ever wonder what might possess someone to cremate and bury their pet, just read this grave marker above to "Patches" and "JJ." It certainly gave me a few new things to think about. The poem below, Rainbow Bridge, gave me a lot more to think about. I had never seen this before. Apparently, there is an entire WORLD of pet grief-and-loss out there. You can read the poem, then check out this website, “Quest for the Rainbow Bridge,” which describes its purpose, its origins, its meaning to those who have lost an animal loved one. The poem, The Rainbow Bridge, is reproduced on Pine Forest Pet Cemetery‘s website.

Rainbow Bridge

Just this side of heaven lies the Rainbow Bridge.

When a beloved pet dies, it goes to the Rainbow Bridge.

It makes friends with other animals and frolics over rolling hills

And peaceful lush meadows of green. They are as healthy

And playful as we remember them in days gone by.

Together, the animals chase and play, but the day comes

When a pet will suddenly stop and look into the distance...

Bright eyes intent, eager body quivering.

Suddenly recognizing you, your pet bounds quickly

Across the green fields and into your embrace.

You celebrate in joyous reunion. You will never again separate.

Happy tears and kisses are warm and plentiful, your hands caress the face you missed.

You look into the loving eyes of your pet and know that you never really parted.

You realize that though out of sight, your love had been remembered.

You cross the Rainbow Bridge together.

Reference and Further Reading:
Pine Forest Pet Cemetery

Funeral and Memorial·

1285 Grays Rd

Warren Grove, NJ 08005

 609) 698-7600

http://www.pineforestpetcemetery.com/index.html

Summer Shore Cemeteries

Ah, the Jersey shore in summer! I had my family at Long Beach Island for five days in mid-June and the weather was glorious. Beach, sun, pool, everything was perfect (except for the ticket I got for not wearing my seat belt) – the only thing missing was a trip to a graveyard!

I’m sure I’m one of a select few people who think of such things while on vacation. To make it easier on my wife and four-year-old daughter, I usually head out early before they wake up. So I planned a sunrise trip up the island and over to the mainland to hit the Staffordville Cemetery near Tuckerton (across the bay from LBI).

I’ve photographed a few cemeteries in this area but had never been to Staffordville Cemetery. Other than its simple existence on a map, I could find nothing about it on the Internet. So I made the trip on a Monday morning, shortly after sunrise. Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean can be breathtaking, but of course, I missed it. Got to the beach at 6 a.m. and sunrise must have been 5:30. So I jumped into my wife’s Toyota RAV4 and headed north up the island. Cops all over the place here trying to nab speeders and folks not wearing seatbelts, so I really had to crawl the five miles or so to the causeway to Manahawkin.

Manahawkin, New Jersey coastline at dawn

The ride was peaceful, not many people about yet. After crossing onto the mainland, Manahawkin, New Jersey is the first major town you get to. If you head north or south on Route 9, there is a cemetery within a half mile either way of the intersection. I’ve been to both in the past, and they are worth the visit: Manahawkin Baptist Cemetery (north) and Greenwood Cemetery (south). Since I was driving past Greenwood, I figured I might stop there on the way back if I had time. Staffordville was about two miles south of here.

I was on the lookout for “Cemetery Road,” as the Staffordville Cemetery appeared (on the map) to be off Route 9 down this road a few blocks. Found the street sign with no problem, though it was almost hidden by all the other signs around it. I drove down the quiet road alongside a trailer park and saw the cemetery at the end. Very unassuming little place. As my grandmother might have said, “it was a small, sad little graveyard.”

This is the pine barrens, as they call it – pine trees and sand. A cemetery sign made out of timber, no gate or fence. One large marble monument to Rev. Samuel Parker’s wife, the rest regular smaller stones. A fenced-in family plot, veterans markers, flags, weather-worn lawn and garden statues, a penny on a headstone. Someone had placed a few stone fragments together in the sand to spell out the words “FATHER HE.”

The graveyard was only about 150 feet deep and 200 feet wide, clean, no trash, no graffiti. Some old Christmas decorations here and there. Old grave markers from the mid-1800s to a few newish ones, including a Vietnam Vet who died in 2006. Some old sea shells adorned a few of the graves. Weird, yellowish-green plant life covered most of the sand.

I began to wonder how many thousands of these small graveyards must exist, and how many thousands of people drive past them without a second thought. These graveyards house tiny memorials to hundreds of thousands of individual lives that have passed. The lives spent in Staffordville, perhaps, may have been spent fishing, farming, sailing – even being a reverend’s wife in the 1850’s. What must that have been like, I wonder, being a reverend’s wife back then?

On my way back to LBI, I did spend some time in Greenwood, a larger and fancier burial ground. The traffic picked up a bit of volume by then, mostly mainlanders going to work Monday morning in Manahawkin or to LBI to work the tourist trade. I would be following them soon, headed back to life after spending a bit of time here with death. These regular drivers probably all know where Greenwood is because of its large wrought iron sign. By the same token, most of them are probably unaware of the existence of the smaller, Staffordville Cemetery. Out of sight, out of mind. Which is why it seems so important to me to hunt down these small, hidden cemeteries. They exist, after all, to honor - and help us remember - the dead.