Historic Catholic cemetery's upkeep

Lisa Burke over on adventures in Grave hunting has a post that expresses some of my feelings and concerns about older historic Catholic cemetery's here in California and what seems to be a pattern of neglect concerning them.I find it sad the church is failing to care for those who during their lives cared greatly for them.Please read it and I look forward to updates!Thank you Lisa and Louise Gaffney for bringing this to our attention.
http://lisaburks.typepad.com/gravehunting/catholic-cemeteries/

Irish Roadside Memorials

Mayo Fan over on Findagrave posted the link to this very interesting site.
http://www.irishroadside.com/index.htm
I find it interesting that there seems to be the absence of controversy about the presence of these memorials in Ireland.Some even seem"official" or done with the approval of authorities.Considering all the controversy they seem to bring up here what with banning them in some places or with them having to be approved and erected by the local road authorities. We really have become a nation of "only by the book,and only what the book allows".I realize some safety issues have been raised about these memorials but again I would think that could also apply to some of the new digital billboards that are blinding me while I drive!
The older Memorials are particularly intersting!

Shaming the Dead-Facedown burial

Found this over on the National Geographic site.http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090623-facedown-burials.html
Interesting that the lead study author Caroline Arcini states that"shaming of the dead is most likely a deep rooted behavior in humankind."It mentions the practice occurring up into the first World War.Most likely with prisoners I would imagine?Information of this sort fascinates me.The why we are and the way we are and how many things are the same all over the world.
Here is a link to the original article in Current Archaeology http://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/buried-face-down-prone-burials.htm customs

The Real Deal

Graveyard Rabbit that is! I did a little trip to Roseville District Cemetery this morning and this fellow was "half way galloping among the graves".And Wary Still indeed he was! Racing away from me.

A Tradtion Saved-sort of

This was in the San Fransisco Chronicle today. While it's sad that it won't be staying in the family it's nice the tradition will be carried on by people who care and California can use all the jobs we can get!
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/24/BU3V18DB06.DTL

Tombstone Tuesday

Old Holy Cross Cemetery -Santa Cruz CA. Jose Brijido Rodriguez is one of the early Californianos,he was baptized at Mission San Antonio de Padua,his father was a soldier.I believe this lady,Francisca R. Escamilla, in the same plot is his wife but that he was not her first husband as I found a record of her marriage to one of the Castro's.She was baptized at Mission San Francisco de Asisi,her father a soldier of the Presido there.Her parents originally came from Guadalajara.
This family plot is in a sad state but at least they have headstones,very few early Spanish/Mexican Californians do.
Sources- The Huntington Library, Early California Population Project Database, 2006. Photos are my personal property.

Death-the Great Equalizer

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7936494.stm
The comment about John Calvin gave me a chuckle,talk about spinning in your grave!

Tombstone Tuesday

The war to end all wars- we wish. St. Joseph Cemetery,Sacramento CA.

An Upturned Cemetery

From The Santa Cruz Daily Surf Sept. 26,1885 "In digging the trenches for the foundation of the new Catholic Church on Mission Hill, a large number of bodies were unearthed.The bones of many were in a excellent state of preservation.Coffins were found in several instances buried one above the other, the upper one being not more than 1 and a half or two feet below the surface. One of the skulls was about three-eighths of a inch in thickness. In the end of one of the trenches a large pile of bones was found,as though a great many bodies had been buried a t the same time. The results of further excavations will be watched with interest."
Remember not just Indians and Spaniards were buried here.Many of the American pioneer family's of the area were laid to rest in this cemetery as well.California had only been a state 35 years but these people were already forgotten and in the way.One has to wonder at the lack of over site by the church in this matter.They seem curiously absent,other than the mention previously of the Father calling for removal of family at the Sunday service, no mention in any of the articles I have read about the church overseeing or involved in the relocation of the people who first celebrated the Catholic faith here.I have one more article to share about this that says volumes about what happened here.

Our cemetery's

I would like to provide links to these blog posts.I think they both go a long why in explaining some of why people feel so disconnected from cemetery's today.I feel the sentiments in these posts are echoed in the huge growth of the holiday of Dia de los Muretos.People feel a need to be connected to their loved ones that have died regardless of their religious beliefs or ethnic customs.We as a society are looking for new ways to deal with the loss of loved ones and the way the business of death is handled now is not fulfilling our needs.Please read Joshua Inayat's blog post on his site Cemetery Seeker on the Camp Polk cemetery, http://cemeteryseeker.com/?p=357
and Dead Man Talking over on Blogging a Dead Horse,were he talks about how the modern funeral business has set up their own demise,http://bloggingadeadhorse-dmt.blogspot.com/2009/06/little-history.htm

This looks very interesting!

Sharif,a member over on Findagrave(http://www.findagrave.com), posted this link.http://www.gadsdentimes.com/article/20090609/NEWS/906099974/1017/NEWS&tc=email_newsletter I would like to try this,but my family and friends already think I'm nuts,this might push it over the edge!Might have to sneak into a lonely cemetery during the week and try it!I wonder if it would work through concrete?

Come and get your relatives

The following are excerpts from newspapers in Santa Cruz CA. regarding the moving of the Santa Cruz Mission Cemetery when the new Holy Cross church was built.In case you think this sort of thing only happened in the "old days"here is a link to Julie over at the Graveyard Rabbit of Chicagoland regarding the removal of a cemetery for a expansion of the O'Hare airport.http://clgrabbit.blogspot.com/2009/05/st-johannes-cemetery-relocation.html.

July 14,1885 The Santa Cruz Sentinel "Sunday morning Father McNamee requested those having friends or relatives buried in the lot adjoining the old adobe to have them removed within two weeks."
So Sunday morning in church the father tells you to come and get your dead relatives within two weeks.I wonder how that worked out?I mean ,did you go dig them up yourself?Did you automatically get space in the new cemetery?By this time(1885),many,if not most,of the original settlers family's,both Spanish/Mexican and others, had moved away,this being one of the most mobile periods in history. I can not even begin to comment on the Indian burials and the remainders of their family's.Many of the family's in the cemetery would still not have English as their primary language so a newspaper announcement would be useless.
The most telling part of this article is the statement"buried in the lot".This sacred place was no longer Holy ground in the eyes of the powers that be.No longer a cemetery,but a lot to be developed anew.That this "lot" belonged to the church itself,that the people buried in this so called "lot" were the very people who had brought the faith of this church to this land and the peoples who lived here was no longer important.That would be the prevailing mindset in dealing with the California Mission cemetery's and the early settlers who were buried there all over northern and central California in the years to come.
I have some news articles dealing with the mass body removal I will post later.

Tombstone Tuesday

Pioneer cemetery, Nevada City CA
"Our little angel has gone home to god"
Wilson Burnett Head
age 5 mos and 3 days

The plot thickens-or doubles as the case may be

I received some new information on the traveling nature of my 3rd great Grandmother Maria Euginia Ynes Robles de Castro grave site from the Genealogical Society of Santa Cruz county.I had requested a search for a obituary as the society has extensive holdings of early newspapers on film and will do some research for a modest fee.They were not able to find a obit for her.Already by 1867 the lives of the founding Spanish family's were at best reduced to a one line mention and more often not worth mentioning at all.When we do research on our family's it is good to remember that those who were poor,or out of society's(whatever society was the In one of the time and place) main group may not be reported in the news papers and other main records of the time.Often they don't even make it into the census.But it does not mean they were not there.Having baby's,birthdays,party's and fiestas.Living and dying with ceremony and passion as best they could.It just did not make the local news.
Both Ynes and her husband Jose Saturnino Trinidad Castro are listed as buried at Old Holy Cross.As both of their death dates precede the date I have for that cemetery being consecrated I will assume they made the move from the mission cemetery.I need to ask some more questions about the sources for the records the society has and confirm the founding date for Old Holy Cross.They apparently have a compiled records of interments for this cemetery.Now I really need to get back to Santa Cruz and visit the Genealogy room at the main library!The Genealogical society maintains a wonderful collection there and if you have research to do in the area I highly recommend it.
They also were able to send me some of the local news paper stories about the removal of the body's and I will share those in another post.It makes for some eye opening reading.

Tombstone Tuesday

I can't always get over to the coast or down valley to explore were my own family rests so sometimes I go visiting in my local cemetery's.I am close to the gold country of N.Cal with its rich history.This headstone is in the little cemetery of St. John the Baptist in Folsom CA. I have been photographing there lately.I had to fight my way into the Oleander bush to get this one.I have to go back so I can get how old he is and what it says on the bottom! Darn leaf!

The lives and history of the early Spanish settlers of California have been pretty much forgotten,ignored or romanticized to somewhere between just silly and downright racist.Sadly, I have found there is as little left of their deaths, as of their lives.
Marie Eugenia Ynes Robles was a infant when her parents sailed into Monterey Bay on the schooner Conception on May 12,1797.Her father was one of the founders of the Villa de Branciforte which would be incorporated into the modern city of Santa Cruz CA.
Inez(the Americano spelling) would marry Jose Saturnino Trinidad Castro,one of the sons of Mariano Castro who walked as a boy from what is now Sinaloa Mexico to then Alta California.
Inez lived her life at Branciforte and at the early California Missions and Presidios with her husband and children.She died in Branciforte June 1,1867 and was buried in the Mission Santa Cruz cemetery.

But she did not stay there.I don't know from my research at this time if she ever had a marker,I may never know.If she did I did not find it on my visit to her final resting place so it may or may not have made the move.Because in 1885 in order to build the new Holy Cross church in Santa Cruz the cemetery for Mission Santa Cruz was dug up and 6 wagon loads of remains were reburied in a unmarked mass grave at what today is Old Holy Cross Cemetery.Some of the markers were moved and some left behind,my photo taken behind the church shows broken headstones that were left(taken in 2009).

The other picture shows the open meadow at Old Holy Cross cemetery that is the grave site.Where she may or may not rest.Because 6 wagon loads isn't very big.The existing death records for Mission Santa Cruz(there are records missing for this mission) indicate over 200 deaths before 1850,the majority would have been buried at the mission cemetery.How many burials after 1850 is not available easily so I have no idea.That some got left behind is pretty much a given. I kind of hope one of them was my great,great,great Grandmother Maria Eugenia Ynes Robles Castro.Because we do have photo copies of her last will and testament and in them she states she wants to be buried"in the holy Catholic cemetery under the care of the Franciscan monks".
Not that Old Holy Cross cemetery is such bad spot really.I thought it was pretty,much nicer than the new cemetery.The only sadness was the vandalism and some needed repairs.This article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel talks about it http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_11322754%20-.My visit there in April 2009 showed signs of people trying to clean and repair some of the damage and I did not find it as bad as the article states.I'm a sucker for cemetery's that are not sterile.No one wants to see vandalism or neglect but who wants to visit dead people in identical cubicles?I was in contact with a nice lady who forward my name on to some people who are trying to organize to help Old Holy Cross get the help it needs,I hope they get back to me.I really want to go back and spend some more time there exploring and taking pictures.
Sources for information.
Inez Robles Castro Will -part of the Leon Rowland collection,U.C. Santa Cruz http://library.ucsc.edu/speccoll/rowland/
The Huntington Library, Early California Population Project Database, 2006.http://www.huntington.org/Information/ECPPmain.htm