Fan House Graves

Like most people, I was born at a very young age. My formative years were spent in NEPA – North Eastern PA – Pennsylvania, that is. Coal was black gold and there were no movie stars. Well, except for that time Sean Connery came to Wilkes-Barre for the premier of his movie, “The Molly Maquires,” which was filmed in Eckley, PA. (Eckley is more or less a shanty town in Weatherly, about ten miles south of Wilkes-Barre.)

So coal was a way of life around these parts from the 1760s to the 1960s; my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all worked in the mines in NEPA. When I was growing up in this area, abandoned coal breakers were commonplace (the breaker was the main structure in a “colliery,” which consisted of a mine and its complex of surface buildings). As a kid, my friends and I played near a hulking, crumbling concrete bunker that everyone called “the fan house.” I had no idea why it was called that, never even wondered. But now, forty years later, I found out why. 

Headstone, Wilkes-Barre City Cemetery  (P. Kinsman)

Some weeks ago, I drove through Wilkes-Barre City Cemetery on a rainy summer morning on my way to visit my mom. A photographer friend of mine, Patricia Kinsman, had posted a fabulous gravestone photo on Flickr about a year ago (see image directly above) - a photo that that she made in this cemetery - so I wanted to visit the place. (Click here to see her entire Flickr photostream). I was intrigued by the low angle she used, which sort of makes the stone look miniature.) 

Patricia described the cemetery as overgrown on a hillside sloping down toward the river. The City Cemetery sits next to the much fancier (and better cared for) Hollenback Cemetery, both of which are on River Street, across from the Wilkes-Barre General Hospital. Easy to find. Supposedly, people used to be buried in the Wilkes-Barre City Cemetery until their families had enough money to give them a proper burial at Hollenback Cemetery! (ref.)

Headstones with ruins of old building

As I drove the narrow road toward the back of the cemetery, it was obvious that some major brush-clearing had recently occurred. Trees had been cut and weeds had been whacked. The rain-rutted dirt road sloped treacherously down toward the river and looped back up the hill. I thought twice about driving my car down there, but the objection was sustained. Shadowing over this small section of the cemetery was the hulk of a large abandoned brick and concrete building. It was barely visible through the trees and you could see graffiti on the caved-in walls. The structure was not visible from the city street above. I took a few photos of the small stones around the building’s foundation and called it a day.

On my return to Philadelphia, I asked Patricia if she knew what the building was.  “A fan house,” was her reply, “...a ventilation system for a coal mine. There are giant fans that pulled air out of the coal mine.  The mine is still there, but sealed off.” 

Toppled monument in Wilkes-Barre City Cemetery

So THAT’S what a fan house is! (The fans of which she speaks were actually thirty-five FEET in diameter, and at the time, the largest in the United States.) My mission was clear. On my next visit, I needed to explore the fan house. (I did this a couple months later, getting much more than I bargained for. Stay tuned and read about this hair-raising experience next week!)

Fan inside Dorrance fan house (c. 1980s) (ref)

Schematic diagram of "Baltimore-style" fan house fan (ref)

Patricia’s Dad originally showed her the fan house, knowing that she liked to photograph abandoned buildings. He found these drawings and photos of the original buildings on line. The idea is fascinating, the technology a mechanical marvel at the time. 

c.1980s photo of Hillman fan house, Wilkes-Barre, PA  (ref)

The mining complex, of which the fan house (properly named the “Hillman" Fan House) was part, was known as the Dorrance Colliery. A "colliery," again, was the name given to the mine and all its outbuildings, including the main building, the coal breaker. The breaker was located about a quarter-mile up the (Susquehanna) river.   

Dorrance Colliery coal breaker, Wilkes-Barre, PA, c. 1980 (ref)

Here’s an image of the Dorrance Colliery’s massive coal breaker. The mine itself consisted of ten tunnels, most of which actually went under the river! Needless to say, the mine shafts tunneled under the City Cemetery as well. The Dorrance mining operation ceased in 1935 when the Susquehanna river broke through one of the tunnels.

Dorrance was owned and operated by the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Think about that. It was a tribute to railroad pioneer Asa Packer’s business acumen as owner of the Lehigh Valley Railroad to MINE his own fuel! And then haul it to regions in need of it! The colliery was in operation  from 1880 through 1959 (the year after I was born). Eventually abandoned, the structure was imploded in 1984. Today, the only remaining trace of the 550-acre Dorrance coal kingdom is the crumbling fan house, and the graves that lie in its ominous shadow. 

I find it interesting that the sign at the cemetery entrance indicates that it was established in 1871, and the fan house was (along with the rest of the colliery) was built around 1880. It appears that the Dorrance shafts tunneled under the cemetery which was already in existence. Convenient location, given all the mining-related deaths that occurred during the period the mine was in existence. 

As I mentioned earlier, I did return to explore the fan house, which you can read about next week. All I can say is that I failed to adequately prepare myself. I broke my own rules related to exploring abandoned buildings: 1) Never go alone; but if you must, 2) arm yourself.

1980s photo of fan house with headstone in foreground (ref)

References and Further Viewing:

Patricia Kinsman’s Flickr Photostream

Read about Sean Connery and the movie, The Molly Maquires 

Read about the actual Molly Maquires
Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior

 

 

Jersey Shore Cemetery

What’s a summer beach vacation without a stop at a cemetery? Even when I take my family to the Jersey shore, I map out a local cemetery to visit. Now, Long Beach Island (South Jersey) has no graveyards to my knowledge, so you must head inland a bit. The town of Manahawkin on Route 9 in Ocean County is right on the mainland just before you hit the causeway out to the island. There are half a dozen small old graveyards between Manahawkin and Tuckerton, five miles south on Route 9. I figured that on Saturday morning, I’d get up before my wife and daughter, drive over and do some shooting.

So on Friday night, I told Jill I’d be heading out early the next morning to do some photography. She said she noticed that I was all shpilkas (Yiddish term for having ants in one’s pants) and looked like I needed to get it out of my system. I got my camera gear ready and set my alarm for six a.m. It feels most insane to wake up that early when you’re on vacation. 

Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean, Beach Haven, New Jersey

When I awoke, I was surprised to see that the sun hadn’t yet risen! Can’t really make photographs without light, now can we? So I decided to go out to the beach and shoot the sunrise while I was waiting. (Here's a secret: I’ve made far more sunset photographs than sunrise ones.) It was quite a magnificent display that the summer sun presented about ten minutes later, here over the Atlantic Ocean. Took a few shots, sighed with awe at nature's majesty, then jumped into the car. There were tasks at hand. I only had two hours and still had to score coffee and a bun somewhere, creep the eight miles up the island at 25 mph, and tear across the causeway and Barnegat Bay at high speed.

Long Beach Island (LBI) really hasn’t changed much in the twenty-five years since I brought my first brood of children here. Quaint little shops and a family-oriented atmosphere, very few amusements and no boardwalk − totally unlike Wildwood and Atlantic City to its south. In fact, LBI seems to be the cutoff point between the north Jersey shore (with Asbury Park and Point Pleasant) and the south Jersey shore. Architecture changes drastically, vacationers are different. It’s much quieter and cleaner to the north. You begin to notice the change fairly quickly as you head north on Route 9 past Manahawkin.

Odd Fellows "FLT" symbol

Lighthouse engraving

As I hit town, I realized that over the years, I had passed Manahawkin’s Greenwood Cemetery so many times that my memories are worn (as John Prine says in his song Paradise). However, I never stopped there. Always had a carload of kids, or something. Times change. 

The front name fencing of this rural cemetery was bathed in the early rays from the sunrise − quite nice edge-of-the-day light with which to make photographs.  I like those sign fences, or whatever they’re called. I parked my wife’s Toyota RAV4 in the center of the small, football field-sized cemetery, got out and quickly surveyed the place. Only had an hour until I needed to head back to Beach Haven (I swear, that’s really the name of the town where we were staying), pick up Jill and Olivia (our three-year-old daughter), and head out to breakfast. Until then, I’d enjoy the quiet solitude of this Victorian seashore graveyard.

Plot borders at Greenwood Cemetery

The ground throughout the cemetery was sandy, with sparse grass. There were trees and old iron fencing at the front, the land grassier toward the back. There were strange, yet carefully delineated family plots throughout – all well-maintained. The borders were generally just low marble or concrete curbing with white gravel or sand over the graves. I couldn’t really do these justice with a photograph, so click my friend Kimberly Killeri’s video for a better idea of what I’m talking about (the video is interesting in its attention to detail). Greenwood offers just one angel statue at the back, but this lovely graveyard has many other things to offer gravers and taphophiles.

As I munched my glazed donut and set my convenience store coffee cup down on a tombstone, I noticed the odd little zinc medallion you see at left. I shot it and did a bit of research later. Remember the Boston Tea Party (1773)? Well, the "S and D of L" were responsible for that. The name "Sons and Daughters of Liberty" was given to the secret clubs of marauding American patriots that threatened the British ruling authority prior to 1776. Up and down the eastern seaboard, this "private band of societies provided an intercolonial network that would help forge unity" through "extralegal means" (reference: http://www.ushistory.org/us/10b.asp).

Another interesting thing I stumbled on (literally) was this set of stones at the front of Greenwood Cemetery. "Friend?" How close a "friend" would you say? This was not the family name, by the way. There was a large monument among these stones with that name one it.

Roaming around, I found several interesting decorative items, offerings, lighthouse carvings on stones, and so on. But, you know how every once in a while you find some REALLY unusual piece of architecture or statue that just produces utter delight? This was the case for me when I found this amazing little cast iron gate! It was swung partly open, and may have been like that for years – or at least since the last coastal storm. It bore the family name and date, along with a splendid harp design below. I don't believe I've ever seen one like it in person, though I'd seen vintage photos of them from cemeteries of the late 1800s.

All too soon, I'm tearing back over the causeway, the morning sun blazing as I drive past the weird Jersey signs, the custard stands, fudge shacks, the “Pottery  Barge.” I'm blasting Izzy Stradlin's G'n'R version of the Stones' Dead Flowers on the car stereo, feeling good about another successful adventure in a new cemetery. But I face another challenge: fighting the breakfast crowd at Uncle Will’s Pancake House.

Odd Decision by the Odd Fellows Cemetery

Mount Vernon Cemetery in Philadelphia certainly has a look of abandonment about it. Locked gate, shoulder-high weeds, statues peeking out from the trees. Photographers have been trying to get inside for years, but it’s just been next to impossible. The absentee-owner seems to fear publicity and resists any request for entry unless you want to buy a plot. How the people who have loved ones buried here (and that includes the famous Barrymore theatrical family, among them actress Drew Barrymore’s grandfather) tolerate the conditions is beyond me.

So it was not a surprise when someone at a local photography show told me a few weeks ago that there was a “condemned” sign on one of the buildings. (People always come to me with juicy cemetery tidbits.) So a few days later, I zoomed up there (31^st Street and Lehigh Avenue) to check it out. I drove around the cemetery perimeter only to find the orange “Notice of Demolition” sign taped to the window of the gatehouse belonging to the cemetery next door, Mount Peace, sometimes known as the Odd Fellows Cemetery. 

A big old brick and wooden structure, the gatehouse seemed to be in much better condition than the actual inhabited row homes across the street. The sign said that demolition of the house would begin on or about July 31, 2012. The yard was dug up and “Caution” tape was strung across the front porch. The inside of the old house, which had been used as the cemetery office, was in obvious disrepair. A trailer sat in the yard, looking like the demolition work crew’s headquarters. (Here’s an old photo of the house on the Odd Fellows Cemetery website. 

Estate House at Odd Fellows' Mount Peace Cemetery, Philadelphia

From the Mount Peace website, a bit of history:

“The Odd Fellows Cemetery Company of Philadelphia was incorporated in 1849 when the population of Philadelphia was only 400,000. The original Odd Fellows Cemetery was located on Diamond Street, between 23rd and 24th Streets. Due to Philadelphia's population growth, in 1865 the Cemetery Company purchased grounds for a second cemetery. This 50 acre tract was purchased from an estate named "Mount Peace" and is located at what is now 31st Street and Lehigh Avenue. The cemetery maintained the estate name for Mount Peace Cemetery.”

One can assume the house was the original “Mount Peace” estate house, which means it was built prior to 1865. Though the house looked to be in great shape externally, what interested and concerned me at least as much as the house was the possible plight and fate of its surrounding ironwork – the black iron fencing, main gate, and “Mount Peace” sign. I hoped this would remain intact. Philadelphia is known for some truly magnificent historical ironwork, and this fencing must have quite an historical pedigree.

For intricate ironwork, the swirls on each side of the entrance pillars are nothing short of amazing. These and the wrought iron vertical extensions of the pillars (to which the cemetery name sign is connected) appear to be truly unique among Philadelphia cemeteries. I spent about an hour photographing just the ironwork.

The huge house appeared to contain the office, with a garage and extension off the back to hold construction equipment. I was curious as to what was going on so I phoned Lawnview Cemetery, who owns Mount Peace (also known as the old Odd Fellows Cemetery). I was told the house was indeed being demolished but the ironwork would remain. The trailer, according to the person to whom I spoke will replace the old house! Interesting how the company boasts "Historical Pride" on its website; however, I suppose there may be a good reason to wipe away all traces of the historic home.

Looking out cemetery gate onto Lehigh Avenue

A few days later, I posted a photo of the soon-to-be-demolished house on Facebook, and get a flurry of irate and incensed responses in the “How could they do such a thing?” vein. One person suggested I contact the Philadelphia Historic Commission and Preservation Alliance (for Greater Philadelphia). So I posted info on both their Facebook sites and received zero response. Quite a shame to lose this wonderful piece of architectural history.

References and Further Reading:

Mount Peace/Lawnview website
Read peoples' comments on Ed Snyder’s Facebook page 

Read peoples' comments on Ed Snyder’s StoneAngels Photography Facebook page 

Cemetery Photography Gone Mainstream?

I was rather surprised to find an article in the August 2012 issue of Popular Photography entitled "Plot Shots  – Cemeteries, where heavenly photos await." Written by Jeff Wignall, the article is interesting for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it reinforces what many of us have known for years – that cemeteries provide a “rich mix of interesting photo subjects.” In addition, it’s written to appeal to the “travel photographer.” One of the best ways to stimulate photographic creativity is to put yourself in a fresh new setting – different things just look more interesting than familiar things.

August 2012 issue

Accompanying the single-page article (on page 40) is an image of the famous “weeping angel” statue, photographed by Laura McElroy. I assume the statue was located at the Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans (Chapman H. Hyams Tomb), since that’s where the article says McElroy shoots extensively. The Atlanta-based photographer describes angels as her favorite subject, though she finds there to be many other types of cemetery statuary that allow her to  evoke the emotions of “mystery, sadness, curiosity, or hope.”

I checked McElroy’s ATL Flickr site and found the published image (which you can see here with several other fine examples of her work). 

As a travel article, the piece mentions several of the “most photographed” cemeteries in the United States. These include: Forest Lawn in Glendale, CA, Graceland Cemetery in Chicago, Green-Wood in Brooklyn, NY, Mt. Auburn in Cambridge, MA, and St. Louis No. 1 in New Orleans. Having been to all but Graceland, I would concur that these are certainly top choices.

"Weeping Angel"

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t live close to any of these places. You might be surprised to find that most any cemetery can provide, as the article says, “a very calm, creative, and serene experience.” (In addition, you can find replicas of the weeping angel just about anywhere, including Conshohocken, PA, of all places, where I made the photo at left!). The author states that “Wherever people live (and die), you will find cemeteries.” True enough, but for my money, the most interesting cemeteries in the United States are in Baltimore, Maryland! They’re not as flashy as the ones listed in this article, but they have their own personality and would provide any cemetery photographer with YEARS of photographic stimulation! 

McElroy makes two interesting comments, providing us with some photographic ideas:

1. On All Saints Day (November 1) in New Orleans, “family members practice the tradition of whitewashing tombs and, at nightfall, lighting candles on them. 
2. When photographing in a cemetery, “keep working until you have taken six distinctly different shots of your subject.”

Fine suggestions, both of these. I like the idea of forcing yourself to take six different shots; this seems like it would help you to concentrate on good composition. Many of us get swept up in the moment when we find a cool sculpture or monument. We just fire away and end up with a mundane snapshot or a typical postcard photo. So, are all kinds of amateur photographers going to be running out to our favorite graveyards and getting in our way? Will they crowd New Orleans "cities of the dead" to capture images like EcElroy's wonderful photo of the candlelit graveyard? I doubt it. While Freud famously said that sex and death are our greatest drives, death remains much more taboo in Western society. Unlike with sex, most people prefer to marvel at death from afar.

The Weeping Angel statue photographed by McElroy and reproduced in the Popular Photography article is one of many replicas of the original “Angel of Grief” sculpture by William Wetmore Story. The original was sculpted an 1894 and serves as the grave stone of the artist and his wife at the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, Italy. I, myself have photographed several versions of this amazing statue, including this one at Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, CA. Check this Wikipedia link to see where the many replicas reside!

Further Reading and References:

Read more about the Hyams Angel of Grief and the New Orleans mausoleum in which it resides.

My adventure tracking down the Cypress Lawn "Angel of Grief" in my Cemetery Traveler blog posting, "Colma Cemeteries and Points Beyond."

My Grandmother's Grave

Last week I wrote in The Cemetery Traveler about visiting the graves of my Mom’s “lost” siblings (see link at end to revisit that story). This week will be a continuation of that odyssey. On the same day, after visiting Evergreen Cemetery in Shavertown, Pennsylvania, where my mom’s two brothers and sister are buried, my mom, my brother Tim, and I drove across the Susquehanna River into one of the south Wilkes-Barre suburbs, Hanover, to visit her mom’s (my grandmother) grave.

Anna Jones does not have a gravestone. According to my mom, my deceased father didn’t want to spend the money. So all we had to go on for locating her grave in Hanover Green Cemetery was my mom’s memory and a deed to a double plot. If memory failed, we could ask in the office. Why did we not know where it was? My father was not interested in my mother’s family and actually would not allow her to visit her mother’s grave. I don’t know how long it had been since my mother was last here – but my grandmother died in 1964. 

Zinc Memorial at Hanover Green

After driving around in the rain to the area in which my mom thought the grave was, we gave up as she did not recall any familiar landmarks. I myself had some notion that I had been there before, but you know me – my memory’s so good I can remember things whether they happened or not. So I grabbed the deed and told my mom and brother I would go ask in the office. My mom said she could never do that, afraid that the office workers might think, “What kind of daughter is this? She doesn’t even know where her own mother is buried!”  I told her not to worry, that I’d go in by myself with the deed and find out. 

I had never examined a deed to a grave before. I found it interesting that the cost of the two side-by-side plots in 1964 was only $150! One hundred dollars for the graves and fifty for perpetual care. In comparison, in case you're wondering, forty-eight years later in 2012 a plot at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia will set you back $5,000!

The fellow behind the desk was very helpful and accommodating. I showed him the deed and he began looking it up in his computer database. I strolled over to a big plot map on the wall and located the two plots in question, # 1017 and 1018. I pointed this out to him but he dismissed the map as being inaccurate. After about ten minutes, he pinpointed the plots and led me outside. It was raining, so he sprinted across the grounds and we were to follow after I collected my mom and brother Tim from the car (Tim graciously chauffeured us around all that day).

My Mom at Hanover "Green"

Upon our arrival, we found the cemetery guy standing on a large open spot covered in ratty brown grass. Not a very picturesque place. He said, “I knew where the spot was because of the plots next to yours.” We thanked him and he returned to the office. My mom said she thought he would be “old and bent over.” “Sort of a John Carradine-type character?” I asked. She laughed and agreed. Life is full of irony and contradictions (take Red Bull smoothies, for instance).

Brother Tim and our Mom

We didn’t spend much time there, as there was nothing to see but the ground under which my grandmother was buried. My mom said, “I remember you could see houses down the hill from her grave, so this must be it.” She told me later that she said a little prayer as we began to walk away. 

I don’t know what the prayer was, but it just might have been answered − as we headed back to the car, we looked up under our rain-soaked umbrellas and saw the cemetery guy running toward us with a big rolled-up map in his hand. He stopped before us and said, “I’m sorry, that’s not your mother’s plot.” Ouch. Though the photo below wasn't taken at that moment, my brother's look of surprise shows how we all must have felt!

"You showed us the wrong grave ...?"

He told us he would take us to the correct spot so we followed him across the cemetery in the car, back to the original area where my mom thought the grave was! Which, coincidentally, was the same area the map on the wall showed. So much for databases. I was a bit perturbed, but still, we would not have found it without him. He explained the mistake in the database and apologized again.

Here’s a photo of the double plot, with the cemetery worker standing on Anna's grave. Doesn't look like much, but it now has deep meaning for all of us. We stood there for a few minutes after he left, and I asked my mom if she’d like to get a stone made for her mother’s grave. She replied, “Maybe a small one – they’re so expensive.” So I’ll look into that. 

I pretty much spent the first six years of my life with my grandmother Anna - she died when I was six. I kind of remember the viewing and funeral. My father worked in the mines at the time and my mother worked in a factory, so my mom would drop me off at my grandparents’ apartment every morning. I really liked spending the day with them, Anna and Daniel, Grandma and Grandpop  – I even remember the layout of their apartment. I had a big bag of toys by the television. My mom said that Anna treated me like a king. I was their only grandchild. My brother was born shortly before she died in 1964. Our sister Donna Lee was born in 1966, so she never knew Anna. Before we left Anna’s grave, my mom said, “I’m glad she got to hold Tim before she died.” 

Plaque at Hanover Green

I like Hanover Green Cemetery. It's low key and in a pleasant, quiet neighborhood. The cemetery’s founding pre-dates the Declaration of Independence by a month – June 9, 1776 – which I think will make it a fitting final resting spot for my mom when the time comes. In a way, a final declaration of her own independence from my father, who is buried twenty miles away.




Related Link:
"Graves of Lost Siblings" blog posting

Graves of Lost Siblings

In a couple weeks I’m planning a trip, the trip of a lifetime. A few years ago, my Mom let it be known that she was in fact, not an only child. She had two brothers and a sister. They were all born seven to ten years after her, and all died shortly after birth. My Mom also let it be known that they were buried in a cemetery in Shavertown, Pennsylvania (near where she lives in northeast PA), the vicinity in which I was born and raised. I’ve asked her to take me there, to see the graves. I’m writing this before the fact. I’m not at all sure what I’m in for. So keep your hat on, we may end up miles away from here.

Since my Dad died eight years ago, my Mom has been talking. This may seem unusual. However, my Dad was overbearing to the point where he monopolized all conversations and didn’t allow other people to speak − and this was one of his better qualities. Our lives basically revolved around his family. My Mom’s family was seldom mentioned, and never visited – the living or dead.

So after he died, my Mom started to talk. It’s been great. I’ve learned wonderful things about her family – my family. The most shocking thing was the existence of Robert Daniel, Daniel Robert, and Joyce Elizabeth − and the fact that she knew where they were buried.

I didn’t know any of this back in 1981 when my first wife was pregnant with our first child. It died in utero and had to be aborted.  My mother, after the fact, wanted to have a tree planted in the baby’s memory in a local park. Both my ex-wife and I thought that was ludicrous. We just wanted to forget the horrific experience. About twenty years later, my mother told me that she had gone ahead anyway and had that tree planted. I figured, whatever, if it means that much to you, fine. I forgot about the tree until she began telling me about her lost siblings.

I realized in a flash how meaningful it was to her to plant that tree. She needed something like that to hold on to the memory of what, at the time, would have been her first grandchild. People cherish things they’ve lost in all sorts of ways, and far be it for me to criticize any of them. Over the past thirty years I've provided my mom with FOUR wonderful grandchildren, all of whom she loves and adores. Perhaps even more than she would have if she had not lost the first.

My mom, Beverly Snyder, at the grave of her grandparents

So the fateful day arrived when we planned to visit the cemetery where her siblings are buried. We did this yesterday – my Mom, my brother Tim, and I. After literally months of ninety-degree weather and near-drought conditions in this part of the country, this is the day it rained like hell. I made the wet, hundred mile drive to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the general area in which my Mom lives. We all jumped into my brother’s car and drove out to Shavertown, where Evergreen Cemetery resides. I lived around here for the first nineteen years of my life and never knew this cemetery existed.

My great-grandparents' grave, Evergreen Cemetery

My mom, it turned out, had not been to Evergreen since 1945, when her newborn sister Joyce Elizabeth died, and was buried here. She surprised herself by remembering approximately where the plots were, but we had to search a bit for the actual grave markers. First we found the Jones plot, in which are buried her grandparents, Daniel and Elizabeth Jones. Seeing my mom standing on her grandparents’ graves and looking teary was heartbreaking, as she said that my deceased father had not allowed her visit these graves. Daniel and Elizabeth had a son, Daniel Jr. (who is not buried here), who became my mom's father. Daniel Sr. died in 1920 and Elizabeth later remarried Robert Berwick, whose family plot is about fifty feet away. My mom’s siblings are all buried at the larger Berwick plot.

Brother Tim and my Mom

Until I saw the headstones, I thought it unusual (or even uncreative) to name your first-born boys Robert Daniel and Daniel Robert. But seeing the names engraved on the stones explained all: Daniel was the children's (including my mom) biological grandfather and Robert was their step-grandfather. (My middle name, by the way, is Daniel.) As I said, I always thought my mom was an only child. Her parents Daniel Jr. and wife Anna tried to have more children after my mom was born (in 1938), but the children did not live. Daniel Robert contracted pneumonia and died shortly after birth. Robert Daniel was born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and died at birth. (My twenty-one year old son Christopher was also born with the cord wrapped around his neck, but as the delivery took place in a tertiary care medical center in 1990, he received better medical care and survived.)

My mom was six or eight years old when her brothers were born (and died) and does not remember much about the situation. She was ten, however, when her sister Joyce Elizabeth was born. She remembers the baby had a dislocated hip, among other problems, and died shortly after birth. Although the boys were buried at the Berwick family plot, she was not present at the burial. She does remember, however, being present at Joyce Elizabeth’s burial. She said “I remember them lowering that little white casket into the ground.” I just about broke down when she said that. 

Tim and Mom at the Berwick plot

Standing on their graves sixty-seven years later, she added, “They were all beautiful babies. I wonder what they would have looked like if they lived.” I suggested, "Like you?" She smirked and said, "What, short and fat?" None of the children’s names appear on the Berwick stone, for whatever reason. A gigantic evergreen shades the plot. As I was standing beneath it with my family, feeling firmly present in my past, I thought about that tree my mother had planted for my almost-firstborn. I can’t imagine ever being strong enough to visit it, wherever it is.