Cemeteries Defined
Graveyards & City Cemeteries
- The first formal burying grounds were graveyards located in newly formed municipalities. One of the facts of life is death, and after death the body needed to be disposed. These early graveyards were often little more than garbage dumps with a few haphazard wooden grave markers or gravestones for those souls lucky enough to have a family that could afford one.
As time went on, some city graveyards became better organized because city fathers were concerned about how they looked and also about health concerns that arose out of less than hygenic burial practices.
Churchyards
- In Colonial America, most folks belonged to some sort of church, and most churches provided burial space for their parishioners. Generally the churchyard, also known as God's Acre, surround the church and, unlike early graveyards, provided a bit more opportunity to erect elaborate and more-or-less permanent memorials to the dead. Although simple tablet gravestones dominate churchyards, there are often a number of specialized tombs, sarcophagi, and sculptures.
Garden & Rural Cemeteries
- A profound change in America's burial grounds occurred in the early nineteenth century with the formation of the first cemeteries. The "cemetery" comes from the Greek koimeterion, "dormitory" (a room for sleeping), via the Latin coemeterium. Although the word appears as early as the fourteenth century, it didn't come into common use in America until the advent of the garden cemetery.
- Garden cemeteries (sometimes called rural cemeteries) in America can trace their roots to Cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise in Paris, France. Pere-Lachaise was founded in 1804in response to the overcrowding in Paris's municipal cemeteries. Pere-Lachaise was modeled on English estate landscape design and was intended to provide a more bucolic environment for tending the dead.
- American burying grounds soon followed suit with the establishment in 1831 of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as America's first garden cemetery. Except for the tombstones, monuments, and mausoleums, garden cemeteries (with their lush plantings and groomed landscaping) look more like public parks than burying grounds.
Lawn-Park Cemeteries
- Lawn-park cemeteries emerged at the end of the nineteenth century. These vast cemeteries combined elements of rural and garden cemeteries, such as room for large-scale monuments and mausoleums plus the addition of vast lawn areas for flat markers.
Memorial Parks
- Nowadays, most new cemeteries are primarily memorial parks, which have flat markers. Promoters say they provide a more egalitarian and equalized form of burial, and the lack of upright markers softens the impact of death. Detractors say that memorial parks lack artistic integrity and simply make it easier for cemetery owners to mow the lawn. Memorial parks also tend to have large community mausoleums for those who prefer aboveground burial.
Coon Dog Cemetery
Specialty Cemeteries
- America also has a number of specialty cemeteries. These can range from simple family cemeteries that dot the rural landscape, to cemeteries that are reserved for members of secret societies like the Freemasons, Odd Fellows, and Knights of Pythias, to the most popular specialty cemetery--the pet cemetery.
RESOURCES
Keister, Douglas. (2008). Forever Dixie: A Field Guide to Southern Cemeteries & Their Residents.
Websites
An Existential Space: Amblings and ramblings on life and being. (n.d.) Retrieved December 24, 2008 from http://botticello.wordpress.com/2007/07/24/ephemeral-memorials/
DarkFiber.com. (2004). A small piece of old weathered wood. Retrieved December 26, 2008 from http://www.darkfiber.com/tomb/headboard.html
Descansos: A Tribute to love. (n.d.). Retrieved December 24, 2008 from http://www.descansos.org/links.shtml
Descansos: Roadside memorials on the American Highway. (2000). Retrieved December 24, 2008 from http://webpages.charter.net/dnance/descansos/index.htm
Everlife Memorials: Roadside memorials and Descansos of South Texas. (2000). Retreived December 24, 2008 from http://www.everlifememorials.com/v/headstones/roadside-memorials-south-texas.htm
Flikr: Temporary roadside memorials. (n.d.). Retreived December 24, 2008 from http://www.flickr.com/groups/58842471@N00/
John Rodriguez: Culture: Descansas, A Tribute to Love. (2000). Retreived December 24, 2008 from http://www.utpa.edu/dept/lrgvarchive/Descansos.htm
Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard. (n.d.). Retreived December 23, 2008 from http://www.coondogcemetery.com/index.html
MADD. (n.d.). Retrieved Decmeber 23, 2008 from http://www.madd.org/
Mount Auburn Cemetery. (n.d.). Retrieved December 26, 2008 from http://www.mountauburn.org/
National Park Service. Burial Customs and Cemeteries in American History. Retrieved December 26, 2008 from http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/publications/bulletins/nrb41/nrb41_5.htm
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. (2008). Retrieved December 2008 from http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=
1879&&PageID=280081&level=4&css=L4&mode=2&in_hi_userid=
2&cached=true
Resting Places: The Documentary. (2004). Retrieved Decmeber 24, 2008 from http://webpages.charter.net/dnance/whatever/kc.htm
Roadside Memorials. (n.d.). Retrieved December 24, 2008 from http://members.tripod.com/jwhiting/roadside.html
Roadside Memorials on the Reservation. (n.d.). Retrieved December 24, 2008 from http://www.pbase.com/ravenoaks/roadside_memorials_on_the_reservations
Surf Meixco: Roadside Shrines and Chapels. (n.d.). Retrieved December 24, 2008 from http://www.surf-mexico.com/shrines/
Sylvan Abbey Memorial Park and Funeral Home. (2008). Retrieved December 26, 2008 from http://www.sylvanabbey.com/
West Virginia Department of Transportation: Application Form. (2000). Retrieved December 24, 2008 from http://www.wvdot.com/3_roadways/3d11a2_registration.htm
Wikipedia: The Free encyclopedia. (2008). Retrieved December 24, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_memorial
