Solar Eclipse 2024 - The Day the Cemetery Sky Went Dark (sort of)

The partial eclipse we saw in the Philadelphia area on August 21, 2017 certainly eclipsed the one we just saw on April 8, 2024. I have yet to write about the first one (I’m a little behind in my work), which I will do after I publish this one. All in all, the 2024 celestial event was disappointing. The day was partly cloudy – until right before maximum sun coverage, when it became totally cloudy. It remained so for about forty minutes afterward. I and the other hundred people at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia saw next to nothing. If only I had consulted California Psychics (“the joy of certainty”), I could have saved myself the trip. At the advertised rate of a dollar a minute (https://www.californiapsychics.com/), that would have been a worthwhile investment.

While Philadelphia was not in the path of totality, people expected a respectable 80% show (the 2017 event was also an 80% eclipse).  We were in the path of partiality. Since I spent the 2017 eclipse at West Laurel Hill Cemetery (Bala Cynwyd, PA) with my friend Bob, I thought I’d spend some time during the 2024 eclipse at its sister cemetery, Historic Laurel Hill in Philadelphia. There are some very tall monuments there and I figured they would look good with the eclipsed sun around them.

I arrived at the cemetery about a half hour before the show was to begin (3:23 pm for maximum coverage in this geographic area). The light had already begun to get weird and I noticed a zinc monument up on a hill, one I’d never noticed before. Trick of the light. As you can see, I came prepared. I heard on the radio the day before that you can safely view the eclipse through a colander. Since I hadn’t paid close attention to exactly HOW you were supposed to do this, I thought I’d just bring one to use as a photo prop (I later made spaghetti with said device). 

Photo by Jason Ranck

The zinkie, as you can see, was rather plain, but still an unusual find. In this geographic region,  maybe you’ll see one or two per cemetery if you’re lucky. These things came in such wonderful designs when they were made (late 1800 through early 1900s), but the ones in Philadelphia cemeteries tend to be rather plain. A few weeks after the eclipse, my friend Jason sent me this image of a zinc monument he photographed in Old Ebeneezer Cemetery, in Tripoli, PA. Now THAT statue would’ve made a stellar foreground subject with an eclipse above her!

I drove around the grounds for a bit, looking for good observation points. Many people were walking around, looking at the sky, lounging on beach chairs, all seemed to have chosen their spot. One woman was staring into the sky through the bottom of a cereal box! I’d heard this was a method as well – you make a pinhole in the bottom and look toward the sun. I actually had ISO 12312-2:2015  safety glasses, but was a bit self-conscious about the way I looked in them. I had this feeling someone was behind me shaking their head, muttering under their breath, “loser…”

Though the sky clouded over a few times before the big moment, there were bright patches of sun here and there. Mostly here, very little there, when it mattered. I had planned to station myself at the base of two enormous obelisks, with the sun placed between them. Trouble was, the perfect spot was occupied by a twenty-something couple making out on the granite coping. They actually had a camera set up and had it on a tripod, trained upward at an angel perched atop an obelisk. Prime spot. After driving around the cemetery the hour before, I had decided this to be the best vantage point. Unfortunately, they did too. 

No matter, I sat down about thirty feet away and made some images like you see here, not unlike so many others you saw on social media. As I saw and heard planes flying, I wondered what the view was like from up there. Did they have to force all the people on the wrong side of the aircraft to stay in their seats so the plane wouldn’t tip with everyone looking out the windows on the same side? 

Sky gazers, Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia

The temperature was about 65 degrees F, prior to the eclipse, but with the heavy clouds and the sun mostly covered by the moon for those four minutes, the temp dropped perceptibly. Animals started acting like it was the end of the day, feeding time. Silflay, for bunnies, if you've read Watership Down. Small flocks of birds appeared out of nowhere (and, as I later discovered, dropped some gifts on the windshield of my parked car). A groundhog popped its head out of a hole about twenty feet away from me. It quickly became faux dusk and the spotlights that illuminate the Silent Sentry bronze Civil War statue came on.

The quality of light during the cloudless eclipse in 2017 was phenomenal. The way everything looked in the soft, indirect light was otherworldly. Nothing cast a shadow, all was illuminated by a soft, faintly glowing light. That went on pre and post eclipse. Alas, we saw next to none of that in 2024 due to the heavy cloud cover. 

Photo by Sarah Amendola (www.mockingbirdlaneartistries.com)

As I packed up to leave, my totality-traveler friend Sarah Amendola texted me from Ohio, with magnificent photos of the total eclipse – in a cemetery! Here’s one of her stellar images!  Now, if you’re a photographer, you would know that such an image would be impossible to capture. Sarah, in all candor, states that she photographed the total eclipse and later layered it onto her image of this statue she photographed in an Ohio cemetery. 

Another friend traveled to upstate New York (from Philadelphia) to do the whole bed-and-breakfast thing with her family, taking a weekend total-eclipse mini-vacay. I knew that being in the Path of Partiality, Philly would not get the full show. No matter. On the way out, I spied two women with safety glasses peering into the sky from the side door of an antique hearse. Certainly not something one sees every day. Both work at Laurel Hill, and were there to greet the arriving guests. Very gracious, these Laurel Hill people!

So, the 2024 partial solar eclipse in Philadelphia wasn’t nearly as transcendent an experience as the 2017 event, but it has given me the initiative to write about that and finally post the photos. Look for it here soon!

Elysian Fields – The Second Coming

As you may recall from our last episode, I spent some time photographing an abandoned cemetery and had a bit of a challenge getting out afterwards. So when the opportunity arose to return to the same site two days later, I licked my wounds, cuts, scrapes, and bruises and jumped at the opportunity. You know what they say about lost opportunity: “a squandered gift, a wasted day, time chases life away” (at least the band Slaid Cleaves says so in their song, “Sinner’s Prayer”).

How did this come about? Well, some friends of mine expressed interest in photographing this same site, folks who like me, appreciate the beauty in entropy. It was such an amazing place, that I could not resist a second visit. I was to meet them nearby and we would all climb the fence into the graveyard. We met at the appointed hour; however, I misjudged the expected activity at the site next door. This had been staid on my last visit; now, it was now teeming with activity. Backhoes digging, pickup trucks zooming around. So we found a climbable section of the fence, out of view of the construction people. My companions, who were much younger and more limber than I, had no difficulty getting up the fence and down the vine-covered tree on the other side. I had some difficulty, the final portion of my trip culminating with a slide down yonder which scraped a few inches of skin on my forearm. But hey, no guts, no glory. 

Off we trudged into the old, gnarly graveyard. Sky was clear, weather was cold. This particular area was easy to walk through, but just ahead we could see hillocks of invasive mile-a-minute weeds engulfing monuments, headstones, and everything else in its path. Looked like a lunar landscape of dead farmland, or something. The cemetery is preserved, but not in a way that it was intended. Trees, growing at odd angles, their crooked branches strangled by vines, are so huge that they dwarf and enshroud thirty-foot tall obelisks. You wonder if old cemetery trees look as they do partly because of the arsenic and other nasty embalming chemicals in the soil.

While my prior visit to Elysian Fields (not its real name, as you may have guessed) offered a splendid opportunity for independent study, this visit would be otherwise. Shooting with others forces you to see things differently, sometimes to see things their way. It’s also safer if you’re not by yourself – who knows what you’d come upon in such a place - thieves stealing bronze doors off mausoleums, animals, or worse. I pointed out some familiar locations to my fellow photographers. At least one member of the party had never been in here, and it’s interesting to see that look of wide-eyed wonder on someone when you know they appreciate the initial experience as much as you did. Kind of like when a friend took me to the movies when Jaws was first released. He had seen the film a couple days before and knew when all the scary parts would happen. Instead of watching the movie at those times, he watched me to see my reaction!

I can describe this old graveyard to the best of my ability, but it really is not something that can be adequately expropriated by word or even image (though I am satisfied with the images I made). On a smaller scale, it would be akin to me describing or photographing the Grand Canyon and expecting you to appreciate it as if you were there. 

This was the type of day that achieves meteorological perfection, photography-wise. During my visit two days before, I must admit I was rather in a fugue state: kind of an altered state of consciousness in which you move about purposely but are not fully aware. Almost like the Stendhal Syndrome. The place has that kind of effect on you. Even with four of us moving around making photographs, reading epitaphs, little was spoken. There was little interaction as each individual took in the scene though his own filter.

Did it seem anti-climactic for me to be here a second time just days after my last visit? I might say that I wasn’t filled to the brim with a sense of purpose, though such photographic plentitude allowed me to concentrate on more detail than before. I made better and closer photographs of the monuments, I went inside the mausoleums whose doors were ajar. True, I was familiar with the terrain and locations of certain monuments, but repeatedly walking through a cemetery does not repeat the experience. You can never step into the same river twice. The weather changes, the lighting changes – even if you are there at the same time of day as I was two days before!

Though it was a sunny day, it was again cold – in the forties. Tomorrow it would rain, the next day it would turn sharply colder and snow. The angels and mourning women care not, as they commune in the shadows of giant obelisks and monuments. The famous and not so famous comingle throughout this vast sculpture garden, the tangles of foliage giving evidence of Nature trying to reclaim her territory.

As we enter beckoning mausoleums with their missing stained glass windows, it is evident that theft occurs. No one legitimately comes in here, save the very occasional descendant. I notice a couple of fresh Christmas wreaths lying at the base of two headstones, their dried-up predecessors lying outside the plot area. Weird. Aside from this, everything looks as if in suspended animation, but from what year? 1970? 1940? 1910? Difficult to say. In its present state, this place has an immense amount of character, and is one of the most photographically interesting abandoned sites in the history of history.

Typically cemeteries offer distinct boundaries between the sacred and the profane, but this place is quite the opposite. There is memory preservation here, and that’s good. But perpetual care? Not so much. The child buried beneath the statue (in the photo below) will always be a child. John Barrymore’s legend will live through the ages, but who visits and honors his grave? A cemetery is a way of preserving things. Not necessarily the past, more like the present. This forsaken old Victorian graveyard is not just who we were, it is also who we are. However, I’ve learned to keep an open mind about such abandoned sites as this – just because it is not kept up does not mean people don’t care about it. 

All the while I was at Elysian Fields I was getting texts and cell phone calls. Rather annoying and couldn’t concentrate. So I decided to leave before the others were done. I had an ulterior motive, I must confess: I was not keen on having witnesses to my expected ungraceful exit over the fence! So I made my way through the weeds, back behind the beyond where I expected to find safe passage home. 

Unfortunately, the backhoes were now digging right there! Second best, I would attempt to climb the tree where we had come in, and hop the fence at that point. I managed to get to the top of the barbed-wire fence by pulling myself up the tree like freaking George of the Jungle when – a pickup truck zoomed into view! I did not want anyone to see me, though I wasn’t at all sure they would even care, so I loosened my gloved grip and the vines gave way! The only thing that broke my six-foot fall were all the dry-rotted tree branches lying on the ground. They say our physical senses reflect our current belief system. If that is indeed the case, I believe I just fell out of a tree. But they also say that the responsibility for our pain is our own.

After checking to make sure nothing else was broken, I got pissed off and grabbed the nearest vine and pulled myself up to the top off the fence, damn the pickup trucks. I got to the top, saw no one in site and made a break for it. I dropped down the opposite side, grabbed my photography gear, and walked nonchalantly across the grounds to my car. As nonchalantly as I could with torn pants and sticks and leaves sticking out of my hair.

Creating abandoned site photographs is exhilarating. The danger is evident in every picture. This is probably why I enjoy similar work by others – I know how difficult it is to gain access to these places. I appreciate others’ work, when it is something that I myself may be too scared to attempt.

Please click here to read part one of this story:
A New Year - A New Abandoned Cemetery

White Bronze Memorials

Every once in a while in my cemetery travels I’ll encounter a zinc monument amidst all the stone ones. You may have walked right past one yourself and taken it for granite (small joke there), but this light bluish gray material is actually metal. Perhaps you’ve knocked on one and noted its clanking hollowness. Sometimes called white bronze (to make them sound fancy), these memorials have a rather interesting history.

You may only find a couple of them in any given cemetery, interspersed with the hundreds of marble, granite, and slate grave markers. Their relative scarcity is due to the fact that they were only manufactured (in the U.S.) for about forty years (between 1870 and 1912). Given that the U.S. has about 330 years worth of cemeteries, forty years is not a long time. Interestingly, the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester N.Y. actually mapped out the locations of the zinc monuments in that cemetery!

Where did zinc monuments come from, you may ask? And why were they around for only forty years? Well, catalogs, and because forty years is the period of time the Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport Connecticut, was in the business of making them. That could really be the end of this blog, but you know me better than that! I can just go on and on ….

Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA

(According to Samuel Orcutt in his History of Monumental Bronze) M.A. Richardson and C.J. Willard perfected the method of casting molten zinc in 1873, with the intent of using the material as funerary monuments. They ran out of money, however, and sold the process before they could bring their dream to fruition. The idea was to offer customers a cheap, yet elegant, alternative to stone. This was the heyday of Victorian cemeteries in the U.S. and all God’s children wanted fabulously ornate monuments for their family plots. Unfortunately for the eventual manufacturers, the Monumental Bronze Company (which made all of the monuments), the idea never quite caught on.

 What’s Wrong with Zinc?

Zinc Jesus on Iron Cross

Compared to marble or granite sculpture, zinc does look rather cheesy (which may have been part of the reason "white bronze" monuments were banned from some cemeteries). However, the main concern of the buying public was that zinc wouldn’t last as long as stone! Perhaps there were doubts about the manufacturer’s insistence that the metal would not rust. A hundred and forty years later, the company’s claims of longevity have certainly been borne out. These monuments seem to have weathered as well as any carved stone memorial.

“A Thing of the Past”

The monuments were actually cast, which means a mold was used (standard design or customized with names and dates created by an artist at Monumental Bronze), into which was poured molten zinc. In the case of a small flush-to-the-ground marker like the one you see at right (typically costing around six dollars), this was a one-step process.

Lawrenceville Cemetery, New Jersey

For more elaborate structures, several pieces were made, then either zinc-welded or bolted together. This way, monuments could be as large as twenty feet high. Flat packaging the sides allowed the manufacturer to easily ship the monuments to any of its subsidiaries across the U.S. Decorative plates (of mourning symbolism) could be later replaced with ones bearing the name of a future deceased family member. The design was actually much more flexible than stone carving!

Charlotte Cemetery, Rochester, NY (Dorothy Loney)

As you can see from the holes in this memorial at right, such a design unfortunately invites vandalism as well. It also brings to mind the rumor that bootleggers used these zinc memorials to hide their bottles during prohibition!

 City Cemetery, San Antonio, TX

Zinc-welding, a process perfected by Richardson and Willard, is part of the reason such three-dimensional castings as the one at the beginning of this article (in Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA) have endured the ravages of time, tree branches, and ground settlement even better than stone. Part of the reason might be their weight. Some friends of mine tried to lift a fallen one to an upright position recently and were surprised at how heavy it was. Even though these monuments are hollow, zinc is actually heavier than iron! Still, some do suffer irreparable damage (its a conservator's nightmare to fix one of these), as you can see in this photo of the angel with its broken wings. 

Fountian Cemetery, Forstria, OH (Jeff Ronald)

Richardson and Willard's patented zinc-welding process has held up very well. According to Barbara Rotundo, it involved heating molten zinc much higher than its melting point and pouring it into the joint between the cast pieces. This melted the surface of the quarter-inch thick pieces and fused them more solidly than soldering would have done. This way, very large monuments could be made from smaller pieces, allowing the fine detail you see in this portrait at left. I like the caption under the relief, "FROM A PHOTO TAKEN IN 1865." Here's where my misguided sense of humor kicks in - I imagine that when the family of the deceased sent the order in to the Monumental Bronze Company, they included a photo for the artist to create a likeness for the memorial. The artist's apprentice misunderstood the instructions and cast this phrase instead of the man's name! Everything about these monuments was customizable - even if you couldn't afford a portrait, you could choose specific text and decorative interchangeable panels. Another interesting thing to notice about this particular monument is the cracking at its base. This is fairly common with larger monuments as their bases begin to buckle and crack under the enormous weight.

Evergreen Cemetery, Camden, NJ

Since zinc is actually a shiny, gleaming metal, like chrome, I wondered if the original zinc monuments were sold like this, with the chalky, dull coating appearing some months after being installed on a grave. “Left exposed to the elements the monuments rapidly form a tough and very durable skin of zinc carbonate that protects the underlying metal. The zinc carbonate is what gives the monuments their characteristic bluish gray color (ref.).” Although I would think a shiny futuristic monument would be rather cool, this, most assuredly, was at odds with Victorian sensibilities. Since the purpose of zinc monuments was to simply be an alternative to stone, it apparently was more aesthetically pleasing for them to resemble stone. Hence, the dull coating was actually created after the monument was assembled; it was delivered to its final resting place looking like it does today. 

Despite a nationwide distribution network (many companies across the U.S. were contracted to assemble the monuments, but the parts were actually poured and molded in Bridgeport), interest in the monuments died off after WWI. Part of the reason was a poor sales organization, which consisted only of catalog sales by part-time door-to-door salesmen. While the Monumental Bronze Company had a lovely catalog (view it  here as a pdf on the Association for Gravestone Studies' website), customers were expected to buy the monument sight unseen. The zinc monuments were not sold by the stone carving businesses where people would normally purchase their memorials. And not insignificantly, the U.S. government took over the Bridgeport plant for the manufacturing of munitions during the war (1914) - zinc is a key ingredient of brass (70% copper, 30% zinc), from which shell casings are made. The price of zinc tripled, probably contributing to zinc’s downfall as an economical alternative to memorial stonework.

Technology Transfer

During the war, interest in the zinc monuments died off and the company retooled to make other products. Zinc, you may not realize, plays a vital role in the process of galvanizing steel, which makes the steel rust-resistant. Though the Monumental Bronze Company couldn't predict its own demise, its processes would brighten everyone's future decades later. 

Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA

While the zinc monument industry eventually disappeared, the company's zinc molding and welding processes contributed greatly to future technological advance. The anti-corrosive properties of zinc were put to use in everything from galvanized steel ductwork for your home heating system to the galvanized steel used in automobile bodies. When a certain technology is made available to others so that it may be used in more diverse ways for the common good, its called technology transfer. Did you know that molded plastic ski boots and cordless electric drills had their origins in the U.S. Space Program (NASA)?

References
Monumental Bronze Company
If you ever want to learn more about gravestones, a likely place is Association for Gravestone Studies
Monumental Bronze Company Catalog
Cemetery Monuments – White Bronze – Zinc
Cemetery Monuments Made of Zinc, Carol A. Grissom, Senior Objects Conservator, MCI (Smithsonian Museum)
Zinc Sculpture in America

Cemetery Photography Books

I was just sitting here this morning munching a bowl of Cap'n Sucrose, looking at my bookcase full of cemetery books. Over the years, I've amassed quite a few of them. I thought I'd share some of the titles with you in case you need a couple to round out your collection.  Most are cemetery-related photography books, but some deal with the broader subjects of death, burial, and mourning practices. Topics that seem to be of interest to most cemetery photographers.

There are many more books out there and I welcome suggestions to add to the list. With rare exception, these are just the books I myself own. Also bear in mind that many cemeteries themselves have published their own books.

Before I begin the list (in alphabetical order), I have to pay special homage to the book that started it all for me, what I consider to be the bible of cemetery memorial photography: Going Out in Style - The Architecture of Eternity by Douglas Keister. His was my first purchase of a book of this kind, and a decade later, I feel it has no equal. This wonderful hardbound volume is full of color photos as well as knowledgeable and entertaining text. (Visit Doug Keister on Facebook.)

Cemetery Photography Book List:

Angels by Marcia Lippman
Thirty postcards, hand-tinted images.

A Retrospective by George Krause
Half of these fine art images by photographer George Krause are death related--tombstone death portraits, monuments, and South American icon statues. Fabulous introduction.

Beautiful Death by David Robinson and foreward by Dean Koontz
Fabulous color photos of European cemetery memorials with a shockingly lucid and introspective intro by horror writer Dean Koontz.

Corpses, Coffins, and Crypts - A History of Burial by Penny Colman
With photos and text, Colman balances grim facts about embalming and mourning with accounts of curious and witty gravestones and eccentric burial requests, turning the otherwise dark material into entertaining reading.

Death--A History of Man's Obsessions and Fears by Robert Wilkins
Very entertaining and informative yet somewhat gruesome! Mostly text. Possibly the most interesting book of its kind I've read.

Death - A User's Guide by Tom Hickman
Cute little pocket-size book covers famous last words, quirky undertaker tales, bizarre burials, etc. All text. Perfect gift for the cemetery photographer!

Ghosthunter - A Journey Through Haunted France by Simon Marsden
Glorious black and white infrared photos by one of the true masters of the medium. Castles and cemeteries, with text. (Simon Marsden on the Web.)

Mourning Art and Jewelry by Maureen DeLorme
If all you photograph are tombstones, you'll be amazed at the galaxy of Victorian funerary art that has been hidden from public view for a century.

Philadelphia Area Cemeteries by Allan M. Heller
An interesting book of text and photos that offers short histories, legends, and hauntings related mainly to small, obscure cemeteries in the Philadelphia "area," rather than the better-known larger Philadelphia city cemeteries.

Philadelphia Graveyards and Cemeteries by Thomas H. Keels
Very informative, albeit local, documentation of many of the region's burial grounds, both extant and long gone.

Postmortem Collectibles by C.L. Miller
Half photos, half text. Covers everything, from embalming chemicals to tombstones! One of the few books in print that features once popular photographic portraits of the deceased.

Saving Graces by David Robinson
Photo essay on the art of sensual statues in European cemeteries. Many cemeteries in Europe are strewn with shockingly sensual sculptures of women. They are idealized creations--young, gorgeous, elaborately posed, and beautifully sculpted. Robinson's exquisite photographs reveal the angelic beauty and mystery of these lifelike sculptures.

Sleeping Beauty: Memorial Photography in America - by Stanley Burns
Perhaps the most eye-opening, yet shocking book of vintage corpse photography in existence. Sorry, death portrait photography. Expensive, but amazing!

Sleeping Beauty II: Grief, Bereavement in Memorial Photography by Stanley Burns and Elizabeth A. Burns
The only book in this list I haven't read or even seen. If its anything like Burns' prior book, it should be awesome.

My apologies to the alphabet--allow me a taxonomic entry, if you would: I felt it appropriate to follow the Sleeping Beauty books with a few of Joel-Peter Witkin's. His contemporary fine art  corpse photography gives new meaning to the term "still life."
Forty Photographs
Gods of Earth and Heaven 
Songs of Experience
The Bone House  

Soul in the Stone - Cemetery Art from America's Heartland by John Gary Brown
This is a large hardback volume of mostly photos, with some text. Epitaphs, unusual statuary, and childrens' monuments are prominent features.

Stone Angels - A Celebration of the Mourning Arts by Ed Snyder (yes, yours truly!)
A book of text and original photography celebrating the grandeur of Victorian funerary art and its most notable subject, the cemetery angel. These ubiquitous denizens of the garden cemetery lend themselves to transformation into powerful photographic imagery. In travelling the world (well, some of it), Ed Snyder reports back with his funereal findings and shares new artwork that he has created in these Victorian sculpture gardens.

Stairway to Heaven: The Final Resting Places of Rock’s Legends by J.D. Reed, Maddy Miller
Interesting color photos of various rock stars' and other musicians' graves. The text won't reveal anything to you about your favorite band that you don't already know. (Read the review on my StoneAngels.net site.)

Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography by Douglas Keister
For my money, the best handbook of cemetery memorial symbolism you can buy. High quality paper stock with many color photos.

The Best of Silent Cities by Jeane Trend-Hill
A photo book featuring some of the most interesting and unusual monuments photographed during the last five years by renowned memorial photographer Jeane Trend-Hill. Check out her entire series of cemetery photography books at http://www.lulu.com/.)

The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult by Clement Cheroux et al.
Fabulous photographs and text from "spiritualists" of the late 1800's. When photography was new and magical, it was believed that it could record the spirits of the dead on film. (Read the review on my StoneAngels.net site

The American Resting Place by Marilyn Yalom
400 years of American history through cemeteries and burial grounds; photos and text.

Your Guide to Cemetery Research by Sharon Debartolo Carmack
Written by a genealogist and an admitted cemetery addict, the book of photos and text addresses a specialized area of genealogical research that can yield a wealth of historical and ancestral information. Chapters cover capturing a tombstone's information, epitaphs and poetry, and the value (and pitfalls) of cemetery transcription and preservation projects.