Nosey parkers visiting graveyards

There is clearly a market for this stuff. My parents gave me this book one Christmas:

http://www.amazon.com/Small-Book-Grave-Humour/dp/0330028715

I remember I was young enough not to instantly get the joke in the inscription on the headstone of a spinster who :

"lived to the age of three score and ten
and gave to the worms
what she refused to men"
 
Maybe she was doing research for her family tree.
It wouldn't bother me and most of the posters here it seems
 
It wouldnt bother me either. It bothers me when I read of gravestones being vandalised as has happened from time to time in different parts of the country. If I am at a funeral I will often read headstones in the graveyard and think about those who are dead and gone. When I visit the local graveyard where family members are buried I often visit other graves and remember people that I knew as a child and say a little prayer for them too.
 
I used to visit graveyards until one day about two years ago in France I took my then 12 year old son into an interesting one that had loads of ornate family crypts.

On entering the graveyard, I told him not to touch anything. :rolleyes:

He put his hand on the front of a crypt that was about 3 feet of the ground and it opened! I nearly had heart failure and jumped to push the concrete door (about 3ft wide and 2ft high) back in place. When we tried to let go again, it fell forward and we had to continue to hold it.

We called the caretaker who screamed at us and no amount of apologising or explaining that he had literally just placed his hand on the front of the crypt would do.

As the door was going to fall to the ground if we let go, we agreed to place it on the ground so it wouldn't get broken. My biggest fear was of what we would see when we removed the door, which was sooo heavy we feared dropping it!

Fortunately, the crypt was cemented up behind the door so we didn't see a coffin or shrouded figure.

We left our name, address and telephone number with the caretaker and told her if the owner of the crypt wanted to contact us we would be happy to pay to have the door replaced and were extremely sorry.

I haven't been into a graveyard since. :eek:
 
I love looking around graveyards. I think they are very peaceful. I know some people who spend a lot of time looking around graveyards doing family genealogy
 
I've been researching my family tree for the past number of years and have spent a lot of time in all my local graveyards checking headstones and looking for relatives. Most of the Irish census records etc were burned during the War of Independence so often gravestones are the only link to long lost relatives. Hope nobody thought I was some weirdo when I was trying to make out inscriptions on all the old headstones!
 
What's the harm in visiting a graveyard and having a look at the headstones? I'm sure the dead don't mind and maybe it helps the living. When I was young my brothers and I used to play in the graveyard. I know that sounds dreadful but it was an old graveyard going back to Famine times, in the middle of nowhere, no road up to it even, we used to play hide-and-seek behind the headstones. We were probably the only ones to visit that graveyard from one end of the year to the next. The grass was waist high in places and it was one of our favourite places. we got a bit spooked though eventually as one of the tombstones cracked as we played around it - never looked back to see what caused it and that put an end to our galavanting!
 
In Paris, Pere La Chaise cemetery is one of the biggest tourist attractions - People come to see the graves and crypts of composers, musicians and our own Oscar Wilde.
It's not that unusual - Are you a bit over-sensitive at the moment due to your loss?
 
Many years ago when we moved house to this area we rented a house looking out on a disused graveyard. As the ground sloped up from our kitchen window parts of the graveyard were quite high.
We were looking for a suitable position for our TV aerial and my brother discovered the best reception could be got by attaching the aerial to the tallest tombstone. However we decided against it as we may not have been the most popular newcomers to a small village.

And guess where we live now - yes indeed we are right next door to another graveyard. This time it's a very busy place
 
Mel said:
In Paris, Pere La Chaise cemetery is one of the biggest tourist attractions - People come to see the graves and crypts of composers, musicians and our own Oscar Wilde.
Click to expand...

I visited a graveyard in Paris - not sure of the name but was in the Montmatre area - and there was a headstone for a famous psychiarist which was very interesting. Prior to his death he had arranged an imprint of his face on the headstone and it was such that the eyes follow you no matter what angle you look at the headstone from. A little creepy, but very cool...
 
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