Tombstone Tuesday

This is one of the neatest "tree style" gravestones I have seen yet.I really like the way they made the hole in the tree for flowers!Unfortunately,the concrete had flaked off were the name and dates were,though I thought I could see died in January?It's very possible the historical society has a record of who is buried here.I just found it very cool.This one was in the Protestant part of San Juan Bautista Cemetery.

My road trip started Friday 9/4.I was going to drive down from the Sacramento area(about 3 hours) to San Juan to visit the cemetery's and attend a meeting of the historical society on Saturday.The president of the historical society,Shelia Prader,who is a professional genealogist also, had told me about my Great-Great Grandmother,Presiliana de Jesus Arroyo being buried in a MARKED grave at San Juan.She also informed me that some of Prisiliana's other decendents would be attending and they would like to meet me!Are sweeter words ever heard by someone doing genealogy?I think not. I have visited the cemetery at San Juan several times both knowing and not knowing I have family there.It is a wonderful place.but this would be the first time I would get to go there and the Mission on my own and spend my time as I liked.My limits this time would be myself.I started driving Friday after working my 8 hour graveyard shift so I arrived about one.It was warm but not the over 100 of the day Since this is my cemetery Blogg I will try to keep to the subject on here.I will have more about the Mission and my genealogy on my other Blogg http://ca-highway99.blogspot.com/ The cemetery is at the right side of the church facing the front.You can only enter through the side door from the inside of the church.And you are only allowed to view the cemetery not walk around in it. The wavy lines carved in the door are found throughout the Mission and represent The River Of Life.The plaster has been removed around the door some so you can see the adobe bricks beneath. The Mission was founded in 1797 and the cornerstone for the present church was set in 1803 with work continuing till 1817.There were over 4000 burials in this tiny cemetery.Indians,Spanish colonists and a few early white settlers.Ascencion Solorzano de Cervantes,the last full blooded Mutsune Indian is buried here.There are no other marked graves visible.The cemetery rests in the deep shade of ancient Olive trees and looks out over the valley.Running under the back wall of the cemetery is the San Andres Fault.Below that runs remnants of the El Camino Real,the kings road, that tied the missions together and was the first main highway in California,this is one of the few places you can see the original road. The next day at the historical society meeting the speaker was Dr. Ruben Mendoza,a archaeologist who has been working at Mission San Juan for 14 years.He was a great speaker,a man truly doing what he was born to do.During his talk he brought up a very interesting tidbit about the mission cemetery.He had interviewed a lady a few years ago who is a lifelong resident of San Juan and was in her 90's.She remembered going to the Mission in the 1920'30's when it was pretty much in ruins.How spooky it was with the sidewalls collapsed.The Mission is the only 3 aisle church of the 21 California Mission churches.The side walls collapsed during the 1906 earthquake.She remembered the ruble and piles of human bones next to the church! Dr. Mendoza belives this may explain how so many burials could take place in such a small space.Old graves may have had the bones removed and place in Ossuarys.There are examples of this practice in Mexico,Latin America and I believe the American southwest.It is a idea I have never heard put forth before and I think bears some investigation.So many of the customs of the Californianos have been lost or glossed over it was exciting to hear something new.Dr. Mendoza also said he would like to know what happened to those bones!If anyone knows he would like to be contacted and so would I! By this time it was around 3 and I was getting tired so I thought I would head over to the cemetery on the hill,snap a few photos of my GreatGrandmothers grave and maybe some others before I went to eat and drove to my motel in Hollister about 10 miles away.I mean, I had a description of where her grave was,that she was buried in the Vaca-Rosa family plot and the cemetery's not that big so no problem,right?

Normal Returns

You don't know how good boring can be till life gets complicated for awhile.I have really missed writing in my Bloggs but just could not find the time or energy.My hubby is on the road to recovery and back to work,Yah! My job is not really calmed down yet but I think I can handle that if people will stop getting sick,it has been a bad year for illness it seems among those I know and love. On the cemetery-genealogy front I have some news. I have stolen a Saturday off on a holiday weekend-rare for my job-and I am going to a meeting of the San Juan Bautista Historical Society this coming Sat..The best part?I will of course go to the cemetery were I have recently learned one of my ancestors is buried.In a grave with a headstone!A real grave,not under the road,not under the parking lot,not in the neighbors back yards,but a real grave with a headstone and name and everything!When the lady sent me the email and told me that you would have thought I won the lottery!This grave is even maintained by other decendents of this woman!And I will get to meet them at this meeting and BBQ.Road Trip! San Juan and the mission are very special places,I loved them even before I knew how much of my family history was tied to them and the cemetery is a treasure.I look forward to posting pictures from it.

Tombstone Tuesday

The detail work on this headstone is amazing.I need to go back for better pictures.Many of the earliest graves in this small cemetery in Rocklin Ca. are of natives of Finland.It is interesting the variety and number of immigrants in the early burials in foothill cemetery's.

The Living and the Dead

I write about cemetery's,the dead and death,I enjoy what I do.But life,and the living, come first.Today was my day off.A rare one in that I am getting two days in row off.And the weather was cool enough that being outside for the day in the heat was not likely to cause me to join my photo subjects unexpectedly.I should go south I thought,down valley to visit family and family graves but I could not bring myself to take the 3 hour plus drive,leave early,stay overnight.I'm tired from work and duties at home and just could not work up the energy to go.
That's one reason I was looking forward to this day I planned.I was going to spend the day driving around the gold country,visiting old graveyards,taking pictures..Get out of the city,away from responsibilities,get something new to share on here.No deadlines,no company that did not want to be doing what I was doing.
But sometimes life and the living that we love change our plans.Instead I spent the day helping my helpmate through the Kaiser hospital system.A leg pain that was at first ignored turned out to be something you don't want to ignore-a blood clot.He is home with meds and under my watchful eye.I'm glad I was here and not up in the hills or down valley,maybe the ancestors whispered in my ear,"stay home,we will be here,waiting".The living first,the dead will wait for me.

Wordless Wednesday

Local cemetery's suffer theft,vandalism

Here is a link for a local(Sacramento CA area) news story and video on theft and vandalism at two local cemeteries.I have to agree with lady in the video,these people can not have ever had to bury someone they loved to do these things to the dead and their loved ones.Most likely it involves supporting a drug habit as most small time theft seems to these days.I feel horrible for the family's and caretakers who have to deal with being violated like this and hope they can catch the people doing it. http://cbs13.com/local/cemetary.theft.vandalism.2.1124378.html

http://www.cbs13.com/video/?id=58542@kovr.dayport.com

Tombstone Tuesday

Assistant state fire Marshall,Loving mother of seven.
"Forever in rolling hills and daffodils."
Rocklin Cemetery,Rocklin,CA

TIME article on unclaimed bodies

I caught a blurb on our local news the other day about how the number of unclaimed dead had gone up at the local coroners office.This article in Time says it is happening everywhere.http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1914780,00.html?xid=feed-yahoo-full-nation-related Family's just can't afford to bury their dead.It's very sad but I can understand completely.I know we are supposed to plan ahead and save for this inevitable day but you have to wonder a bit these days how do we do it all?We are supposed to save for your retirement,pay for your own medical,pre-pay for your funeral,save for the kids education,save some more for your retirement and medical costs as you get older because it's not enough.So what are you supposed to live on now?

Tombstone Tuesday

Jared Sheldon was granted the Mexican land grant for Rancho Omochumney inJanuary1844.The land grant was surveyed for the Mexican government by a young surveyor living in Monterey,William Tecumseh Sherman.He split the grant with his friend William Daylor and together they build successful Ranches on the Consumnes river.Before Sheldon could apply for a land grand he had to convert to Catholicism,take a Mexican name,become a Mexican citizen and find the land.Then improvements had to be made on the land within a year.Jared Dixon Sheldon,a native of Vermont,was killed by miners in a dispute over the flooding of mining claims.He rests in the historic Sloughhouse cemetery in Sloughhouse California.It is hard to believe these huge millstones were brought all the way from Mexico but they were.

The Peculiar and Promiscuous Methods of Burial in Early Mission Days

That is the title of the this article in the Sept.28 1885 edition of the Santa Cruz Daily Surf.I don't know that I have heard the word "promiscuous" used in relation to a cemetery before!
The article further says that the excavation for the walls of the new church "revel a subsoil composed of about equal parts of adobe,decayed coffins, and dead Indians"."A promiscuous lot of "remains" of Spanish and Indian origin,buried in the most heterogeneous manner possible to imagine".Big words for the time and place wouldn't you say?That there were over 3 thousand documented burials in a area of less than a quarter of acre.It was a crowed place no doubt!
The article further states"some of the redwood coffins are in a astonishingly good state of preservation,but the mortality contained therein has resolved itself to brown mold and a few detached bones."I have to wonder why would you open a coffin that is in a good state of preservation?And why would the church allow such a disturbance of the dead?
"Some of the coffins are of very creditable workmanship and adorned with crosses formed of silver headed nails."
It talks of a mass grave of 15 buried without coffins that was supposed to be from a smallpox epidemic.Then goes on to mention several Indian burials;"Two stalwart skeletons in possession of aborigines of some dignity and importance in their day.Their skulls are of capacity sufficient to protect a liberal supply of brain matter, and they carried to the grave with them long strings of beads and shells and there are indications that pipes and other articles now impossible to identify were also deposited with them."
A very different time and place.All of them,native Indian,Spanish settlers,Mexican immigrants,Irish loggers and those first white men who "jumped ship" and stayed, were scooped up and hauled to the new cemetery,six wagon loads.Reburied together in what is now the Old Holy Cross cemetery
There they rest in a little open meadow.Unmarked and mostly forgotten by everyone.I was glad I found out about this place and I really enjoyed visiting a learning about it.I can't wait to go back.Maybe I will take some flowers,and say the names I know out loud,to remember.

Wordless Wednesday

"I had fun everyday of my life."
"Snook" Silva
St. Vincent De Paul cemetery,Rancho Murietta CA.

Tombstone Tuesday

I could not read the dates myself on this.A transcription on Findagrave list the last name as Wade on both markers and a date of 1879 born and died ,Tena Wade,on the only legible one to them.This was in the Sloughhouse Pioneer Cemetery,Sloughhouse CA.I would say a third or more of the legible stones in this cemetery are for children.Very interesting place.Crazed commuters,tourists and logging trucks zipping by on a two lane road a few hundred yards to one side.On the other side farm land,cattle lowing in the fields, a farm cat running down the dirt road with a gopher in his mouth, a huge Swallowtail butterfly drifting by my head several times as I took photos.Pyramid Peak and the Sierras vanishing in the heat haze to the east as the temp. crept towards a hundred plus.Past and present together.Summer in the valley.

August GYR Carnival:Favorite Photo

This was tough for me because I always think my favorite photo/best photo is still ahead of me somewhere but that's a personality problem I have.I dream of taking pictures in Oaxaca on Dia de Muertos, of New Orleans and London,the old burying grounds of the North Eastern U.S. and New Mexico. I am sure if I ever get to visit them there will be wonderful graveyards and headstones to photograph, but for now my home is California and this is what I see. Most of my ancestors lie in unmarked or mass graves ,even those who may have had the money for a nice marker at the time of burial. This photo is of a unreadable marker in the San Juan Buatista Cemetery in San Benito Co. CA This cemetery was dedicated in the early 1840's as "the Mission cemetery could hold no more". There are a number of these old wooden markers that survive and many other old graves.It is here that my great,great grandmother Maria Teodora Garcia would have attended her mothers funeral when she was 13 years old.I believe her father is buried here as well,he died when she was 10,murdered,"three leagues from the Mission".He was the son of the first non-Indian child born west of the Mississippi. Behind and below this hill the cemetery is on, runs the San Andres Fault.In 1809 the first San Juan Mission and all buildings for miles around were leveled when there were earthquakes for 9 days. These and others of my family rest here.I like to look at this marker and think it might belong to one of them,this is my favorite photo.This is my California.

Wordless Wednesday

St. Joseph Cemetery,Sacramento CA

Seeking Room For The Dead

With all of the negative news about the cemetery employees at Burr Oak in Illinois and the awful things they have done,this story in the New York Times provides a wonderful counter point.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/nyregion/19graves.html