I am not a true history buff. I don’t watch documentaries about the past or have a particular era that I know so well I could win any trivia competition. I do, however, appreciate and agree with the sentiment that we have much to learn from history. Sometimes the people who came before us, over time, become just names and dates. I have also come to realize that you can get a unique sense of a community by exploring its oldest cemeteries.
Some cemeteries take their mission of caring lovingly for those interred there one step further. They believe in educating the surrounding community. They have made efforts to make what happens “in the dash” (the dash between the first date and the second date) three dimensional for visitors. Two particularly wonderful examples of this are:
Glasnevin Cemetery – Dublin, Ireland
Evergreen Cemetery – Gainesville, Florida
During our time in Huntsville, Alabama we stayed at the Marriott at the Space and Rocket Center. A brief 15-minute drive from this wonderful hotel into one of Huntsville’s oldest neighborhoods, and you’ll find Maple Hill Cemetery. This cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012, but that’s not the most impressive detail. The impressive details are its other stats. Maple Hill was founded on two tiny acres in 1818. Today, it is a whopping 100 acres and has over 80,000 dearly departed interred there.
While its educational/extra programming isn’t as notable as either of the two places mentioned above, the property certainly is. In fact, the paved lanes that allow vehicles access are so winding and attractive that people visit for various reasons. On the beautiful, cloudless morning that I was there, I saw lots of people walking for exercise. It may be unusual, but it’s a good idea if you think about it. There is minimal traffic. It’s quiet, peaceful and reflective. A person could do worse for their morning exercise.
Maple Hill Cemetery is the final resting place for five governors of Alabama, several U.S. Senators, Albert Erskine (the President of Studebaker Motors) and lots of other people who are notable in local (and sometimes national) history.
There is no denying that in “the old days” tombstones were art. Many of the statues, etchings, and poems are beautiful. There is also the Maple Hill Cemetery Carved Tree. A nearly 100-year-old tree had been damaged by storms and needed to be taken down. Staff couldn’t bear to see it disappear completely. They decided to leave a portion of the trunk intact and contract with artist Roark Phillips to carve a pattern on what remained. The result is unique and quite stunning. Vines climbing to Heaven seem appropriate cemetery art, after all.
The cemetery is quiet, beautiful, interesting, and educational. Art is everywhere you turn and walking 100 acres (or even a portion of that) is darn good exercise. Perhaps some time here will also have you contemplating what’s between your dash. It doesn’t seem so strange to visit a cemetery now, does it?
October 30, 2021 at 2:50 pm
It seems like a lovely cemetery. I like visiting cemeteries. There are so many untold stories there. I often find myself imagining what their lives were like “in the dash.”
October 31, 2021 at 9:22 am
I didn’t have a lot of time to explore (mostly because Maple Hill in Huntsville is so large), but I hope to go back. I would imagine researching the stories of some of the people laid to rest would be a historian’s dream.
October 31, 2021 at 8:40 am
I love visiting cemeteries! One of my favorites is the one on Key West. Mainly because it’s one of few quiet places on the island. I also enjoy the one on Snake Key in Cedar Key.
October 31, 2021 at 9:23 am
Oh! I haven’t been to those two Florida cemeteries. I will add them to my “to-do” list. I am glad to see that people don’t think that I am weird for finding cemeteries fascinating.