Nothing like a good walk or run through a graveyard to make one feel alive! Since I was in Philly anyway for the weekend, I have been longing to take a walk in Laurel Hill. It's been a while, and one of my favorite places. Visting Laurel Hill evokes a bygone era when cemeteries were built intentionally in scenic areas, and vistas, where loved ones or visitors would come to walk the grounds, not in mourning but to see the wondrous architecture and peaceful landscapes and visiting passed on family. I love cemeteries. You may recall when I lived in Bucks County, the original Casa du Borghese was next door to a very old one. I never minded them. Philadelphia's Laurel Hill though is one of America's most notable burial grounds founded back in 1836 and was established as a bucolic alternative where the living could bury their dearly departed. The place sits high above the Schuylkill River and has been designated a "National Landmark" the first graveyard in the country to receive such a title. Every season is quite beautiful there, and the cemetery in parts reads like a who's who of notable figures from Thomas McKean, a signer of the Declaration of Independance, to Sarah Josephs Hale, credited with making Thanksgiving a national holiday and the author of Mary Had a Little Lamb, to Matthais Baldwin, the locomotive magnate, General George Meade and other Civil War generals, a handful of Titanic passengers, many artist and architects, and many families of the socialite scene. It was a beautiful weekend for a visit. Is it any wonder this was a perfect spot for some quiet and peace after a busy weekend? The people there are always so quiet.
I love being a taphophile.
Great photos! I love walking through old cemeteries, too. The old mausoleums intrigue me the most!
ReplyDeleteThose are nice photos. I'll admit we don't have anything that elaborate in the cemetery I'll eventually end up in.
ReplyDeleteI find cemeteries very peaceful; even the headstones, which can be interesting to read, and the design of mausoleums, is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThere's something special about walking through cemeteries.
ReplyDeleteYou walk through a cemetery and realize how lucky one is to be alive, especially when you come across graves of people born the same year as your own.
ReplyDeleteOr you think of grandparents or other elder relatives you dearly miss, who lived long lives. And then you see the graves of infants, children, teenagers, young and middle aged adults and you feel how unfair it is for their lives to be cut short, and weren’t your own relatives very fortunate to have lived long lives.
It puts one’s grief for deceased loved ones in perspective quick.
The tombstones run from simple to elaborate. I’ve seen one of an Armenian man decorated with Mt Ararat in relief, a Hungarian couple with the cross and crown of St Isztvan, a teenagers tomb with a skateboard, and inside the columbarium, the ash reliquary of a child in the form of three dolphins, and another with a photo of a Hispanic woman taken when she was young in the 1940’s and looking like a movie star.
Cemeteries are verdent, peaceful places that make one think and reflect.
-Rj
Darling Mistress,
ReplyDeleteYes, we can confess to being taphophiles too. We particularly like to visit Kerepesi Cemetery in Budapest which is very similar to the one you show here at Laurel Hill. The architecture and tombstones are magnificent and, as you say, it is a place of peace and calm in a very troubled world, On the 1st. November, the tombstones of the most famous at Kerepesi are opened and one can walk inside these often vast buildings. Composers, singers, politicians and aristocrats are all buried there and the most marvellous Plane trees provide shade on hot summer days and glorious autumn colour right now.