This will probably bore most but Maddie and I had such a good time this morning I wanted to share it. We left early so we could have the morning light and so it was cooler. Oddly enough, Maddie was excited to see the graves. She knows about "death" in that the body stops working. We bury the body for "rest" and the soul goes to where it's happiest. She read a good deal of the stones (names, wars, etc...) on her own and loved the statues. She knew not to step on the stones and to try and avoid stepping on the space in front of the stones. She picked little flowers (wild cornflowers, dandelions, clover flowers) and put them on really old graves because they didn't have any and no one comes to visit them. She also helped pick up some random bottle and garbage when she saw it (she pointed it out and I picked it up...no dirty hands for the kiddie). We also repaired a Civil War marker. It unscrewed and the flag fell.
We met the caretaker. He was a nice man named Bob and he shared a good deal of history with us. There is a section for the children who died of a died of an influenza epidemic. He told me where to find the first grave dug in 1856. He showed us where the only Congressional Medal of Honor recipient was located. He gave permission for grave rubbings but he asked that if a grave is in really poor shape to use my discretion.
It was a really nice morning and I want to do it again. I really need to go back because you can't investigate every gravestone with a six year old that has had enough. You can only look at so much in an hour and a half and my camera ran out of batteries before I could finish. I need to go back and do macro work.
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