A late finish

Thanks to an unreliable senior memory, I thought I had finished my series of Maine blogs...but, no. I wanted to show you a few sights from the lovely Evergreen Cemetery near the kids' house. As you can see by the fact that I have a "cemeteries" label to this blog (on the right) I do enjoy exploring these memorial parks. They're especially interesting in New England, where some of the memorial customs (like the rows of family member headstones you see above) are different from what you find in the South.

They also have more really old graves, like this one, whose occupant was born just after the birth of the nation, in 1792 (although the headstone has obviously been replaced more recently):

Also, in contrast with many graves and memorials in southern cemeteries, if you see a Civil War notation here, the person fought wore a different uniform. "GAR" on this emblem stands for "Grand Army of the Republic," which Wikipedia tells us is a fraternal organization for Union vets:

(I've been doing some genealogy research this past year, and found that I have ancestors on both sides of that conflict.)

A rather interesting memorial that I noticed during this latest visit is this rather rustic, but enormous, boulder...

...with this plaque to tell you about the honoree, another 18th-century baby:

Nearby was this very sad chronicle of a family's grief. It's the backside of the family headstone, with two children's names. I hope you can read the inscriptions (click on the photo to enlarge), but if you can't, it tells us that Howard, Jr., was born and died in 1923, and Mary Dell was born and died in 1927. You know, intellectually, that back in the day it was likely many of a family's children would die as infants, but seeing a record like this, in stone, really brings home the sadness. And makes this grandmother so very, very thankful that we are living now and not then.

That does finish up tales of my trip to Maine, but some closer-to-home excursions are coming up.

Maine woods

I never cease to be amazed by what trees look like in areas with reasonable rainfall. Like Houston, or Maine. I spent a delightful couple of weeks in the latter location recently...primarily delightful due to the presence of not two but THREE adorable grandchildren. But the local flora, as well as the wonderfully cool temperatures, was another draw.

The photo above was taken in Robinson Woods, in Cape Elizabeth. And here's one from Sewell Woods, in Scarborough...

But you don't have to drive far, in the Portland area, to see wonderful trees. Just down the street is where I saw most of the fall color that I was hoping for on this trip. Unfortunately, rain at the wrong times, as well as generally warming trends, big-picture-wise, are making leaf-peeping more hit and miss. I was a bit too early for the peaks of color, but saw plenty all the same. Mostly on a walk with my host family around their neighborhood cemetery.

As long-time readers of mine will know, during my semester in London ('way back in ought-8) I lived within a couple of blocks of Brompton Cemetery, where I loved to walk, especially with newly arriving guests working to get their bodies on European time. Cemeteries are just wonderful places for walking (and biking, as my granddaughters can attest), and Evergreen is one of the best.

you can see the host family here, although the bike riders are pretty far ahead

Here's another shot of early fall color and monuments...

...and you can see other neighbors also take advantage of the lovely weather and the expansive trails...

The reds are the most vibrant here, and I couldn't resist zeroing in on them (although I'm not happy with this camera's capture of vivid colors; but good news! I've got a new one now and am hoping for great things!)...

The yellows are eye-catching, too, as you can see elsewhere in the neighborhood...

Not only are these leaves good for passive peeping and photo-snapping, but when you've got a super-crafty (in a good way) mom in the house, collecting them can result in these wonderful pieces of art...

Aren't those nice!? In spite of the cold snap I got to enjoy during my visit, there were still lots of flowers blooming in the 'hood. And I'll show you some of those next time.

Südtirol/Alto Adige: Denkmäler/Memoriale

I became very interested in war memorials—their design, placement, meaning, and emotional power—in preparation for my London experience, and while I was there.

But until this trip, I had not had the opportunity to see, and be moved by, memorials erected by the other side in the World Wars.

Kastelruth/Castelrotto was rich in these memorials. And I couldn't help but realize that this region of the world was on the "other side" in both World War I and II. It was part of Austria-Hungary in World War I, when Italy fought on the same side as the UK and US. Then, after being ceded to Italy, that country fell under fascism and fought with Germany against us.

The memorial at the top of this post is at one end of the well-tended cemetery behind the village's church. Here is how it looks from up on the hill behind our hotel...

...and here's a somewhat closer panoramic shot of the tiny area:

the white structure in the background is where the war memorial is located

Of course a cemetery is nothing if not a collection of memorials, and this one was particularly interesting. Its arrangement and iconography are so different from the cemeteries long-time readers will know that I've visited in the US, and even from those I frequented in the UK.

Part of the differences, no doubt, spring from the lack of space. The plots are small, and many of them seem to be devoted to whole families...

As you'll notice, it is a cemetery that is frequently visited by villagers, and well-decorated with flowers, sometimes rather extravagantly...

Also strange-looking to me are the metallic "headstones," as well as the little containers at every plot—for holy water?

We saw memorials outside of the town, too, like this one that graces a point on the Hexenbänke/Banche delle Streghe trail we hiked at Seiser Alm/Alpe di Suisi. It remembers, we think, a young hiker...

But back to the memorials specifically commemorating the dead of the region's wars. On either side of the mural I showed you at the top of the post, there are lists of names. On the right are those from the area killed or missing from World War I, and on the left from World War II...

If you click on this image you can see it in some more detail. The long, long list of names beginning just above half-way down the column on the right is under the heading Vermisst, which means "missing." Not only is it heartbreaking to realize so many of the area's dead were never found to be properly mourned by their loved ones, but it dates, to some degree, the erection of this monument. 

Because it's written Vermisst instead of Vermißt, the list was probably painted after the German spelling reforms of 1996. The monument does look rather new and unweathered, and it doesn't follow the usual (at least in the UK) practice of just adding a list of World War II dead to an already existing list from World War I. This monument looks like it was erected all of a piece to pay homage to the dead and missing from both wars.

An older memorial list is on the front of the village church...

The names under Fraktion Dorf were from Kastelruth/Castelrotto, followed by names from the nearby villages of Seis and St. Michael. A panel on the other side of the church doors lists men from other nearby towns. My German grammar is rusty (and was never all that great) but I also think the inscription at the top is in the local dialect. But I think it means, more or less, "those remembered by Kastelruth who fell in the war 1914-1918." Notice there's not an Italian text; those who fell in that war were not Italians.

An even more moving memorial, of sorts, is right across from the registration desk in our hotel. It includes pictures of many local men who were lost in World War II. I was unable to take a picture of this obviously old and revered poster that was clear enough for you to read the inscriptions, but most of them are identified by the time and place of their deaths, and these ran the entire spread of the war, both temporally and geographically...

Some sober notes to be inserted into our super-fun vacation, but notes that make the experience all the richer. As well as a good reminder that, even though those governments were responsible for starting the big 20th-century wars, their people suffered as much, if not more, than ours did.

Point Loma attractions: part 1

In the last post I showed you some marvelous views of San Diego from the perfect vantage point of Cabrillo National Monument on Point Loma. Now it's time for a closer look at other reasons to visit this gem, in addition to the views.

The lighthouse shown above is the old Point Loma lighthouse. Very picturesque, but as we learned, not as useful as you might expect. Sure the point is a wonderful spit of land perfectly placed at the initial entrance to San Diego bay, but it's actually too high an elevation for a lighthouse! Its light apparently was often obscured by clouds and fogs that [I guess...boy, we sure didn't see any fog!] occasionally settle on the coastline here.

As the handy relief map on the right shows there are now two Point Loma lighthouses (click to enlarge and see the elevation number; the red box highlights the positions of the two lighthouses). And the one that's actually in use is this new one, down closer to the water:

The "new" structure (built in the 1890's; you can learn more about it than you will ever need to know here, at this amazing lighthouse resource) isn't open to the public, but the old one has been made into a museum. It's particularly dedicated to the lighthouse keepers that traditionally minded the life-saving lights all along the California coast (now most are automated). Here's a sample of their exhibits, some vintage cans representing the kind of food the families stationed here might have eaten:

Of course, the most photogenic aspect of any lighthouse is its position on the land. And this one is as picturesque as any I've seen...

The light cupola at the top is especially handsome, don't you think?

Point Loma offers lots more in the scenic line as well. For instance, this military cemetery that has to be in one of the most gorgeous settings of any resting place...

It's not part of the National Monument, but is rather on the Navy base that you traverse to get to Cabrillo. The official name is the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.

But the Monument does have evidence of military action: several bunkers that were used as gunnery emplacements during the anxious days of World War II, when the west coast seemed vulnerable to Japanese attack. Here's one from the outside...

...another one had a little museum inside with all kinds of interesting information about the operations that were undertaken here...

As interesting and scenic as all these structures were, here up on top of the Point, we found the most fascinating part of the park to be down at the water's edge. I'll show you what we were lucky enough to see down there next time.

Cemetery tourism

This large, lovely cemetery is just a few blocks from the kids' house and I've had many walks through it during my stay in Portland. It's called Evergreen, and I'm sure that's what it is, given all the pines, hemlocks, and spruce throughout.

I've always been interested in cemeteries on my travels; it's so interesting to see how they differ from, and resemble, each other from one region of the country to the other. (I spent a lot of time in another cemetery, half a world away, that was near my flat in London.)

And the New England ones are particularly fascinating since you usually can find much older graves than in those in my neck of the woods.

Since I was able to spend so much time in Evergreen (and a lot of it walking slowly with a toddler—you notice SO much more this way!) I was able to notice all kinds of interesting features, which I will proceed to share with you now.

Indeed some of the graves are pretty old, although you can't always tell their age by how worn the headstones are. Some have obviously been refurbished or replaced, but I imagine the ones on the right above had not. They are in the older section of Evergreen, where we saw some birthdates in the late 1700's. (I saw some older ones in another cemetery that I'll briefly mention later on.)

What particularly caught my eye, however, was how both older and newer gravesites had almost all stand-up headstones instead of the flat ones that I'm used to seeing (see my parents' headstones at the bottom of this page).

Here's an example of this style on a newer family plot:

The older ones aren't always so regular and consistent in their styling...

...but some are...

Some of these individual headstones only had initials on them; it's assumed, I guess, that everyone who's interested will know who everyone is (although it's been my experience with family photos, that the names of and relationships among the older generations are often lost, no matter how familiar people were with this information long ago).

Others went a little further and had first names given, like the lovely stone on the left, commemorating a relative named Louise.

Some displayed what seemed like a rather inefficient method of giving birth and death dates—they would say the number of years, months, and days that a person had attained when they died on such and such a date, rather than just giving the two dates. Of course, information is not always complete, as I saw many headstones without birthdates on them. But if you know enough to do this calculation, why not just put the birthdate on the stone? Victorian over-elaborateness, perhaps?

Some other interesting features on offer at Evergreen:

bell from a Portland fire engine, in use 1879-80

sealed tombs that looked for all the world like locked-up hobbit holes!

The other cemetery I visited briefly while in Portland is the Western Cemetery over on the Western Promenade.

It's older than Evergreen; I saw a few birthdates there in the 1730's. A large percentage of the headstones were worn almost smooth or sadly in need of repair, but one category that had obviously been replaced and well-tended were those of military veterans. I was pretty impressed to find several veterans of the War of 1812 (!) buried here, as well as a large number of Civil War vets. Here are one of each:

I also saw this lovely stone, and the name of the person buried there seemed an apt admonition among so many sad reminders of young men dead in our wars...

Sad as such reminders are, I still find cemeteries to be such peaceful, restful places, and I love to include them in my tourism itineraries whenever possible.

Plus, they're great places to feel the grass between your toes, and, perhaps, ruminate a little upon the chains of memory that connect us all, from those long gone to those whose life journey is just beginning...