IN LIFE AS IN THE DANCE : GRACE GLIDES

ON BLISTERED FEET.
---Alice Abrams

Monday, July 19, 2010

A Little Bit for Linda

You all know how Linda loves visiting cemeteries?  Well, I do too, and have always enjoyed reading her posts, not just for the history but for the "spooky" element she so deliciously provides - orbs and all!  These photos are of an old Kern County cemetery that sits on the banks of Lake Isabella. The picture I took of the guy fishing was taken from this cemetery.  (See 3rd photo down)



The oldest headstone is a lot newer than the ones Linda visits but is one of the oldest here.  The thing that really contrasts between this one and the ones back east is the earth - here, it's as hard as a rock and dry as a bone.  Although cemeteries are not places in which you want to hold festivities, this one is so forlorn looking.  The solitary bare stakes that are holding the place of those unknown souls give no testimony as to who is forever laid beneath them.  The contrast between these and the ornately carved headstones is great.  Makes me wonder about the folks who inhabit these graves.  It just may be the the unmarked graves hold the remains of people who were of better character than those who fared better as far as markers go......

(While Mr. Lambert's headstone is relatively new, the description says so much about this area.)


Here's the text on the historical marker:

"Kernville, called Whiskey Flat until 1864, was founded in 1860 when Adam Hamilton, a whiskey dealer, moved shop here from the more temperate Quartzburg, founded earlier that year.  Both camps resulted from the discovery of the Big Blue Ledge by "Lovely" Rogers while tracking a stray mule from the earlier camp of Keyesville."

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

ooh, I love this post. I too hold a strange attraction to cemeteries. Beautiful shots, Gracie. It does look awfully dry there!

Sarge Charlie said...

I love cemeteries and this post. I always like Linda's post about cemeteries also. I loved the photo she had where all the headstones were greem with moss or mold.

Empress Bee (of the high sea) said...

i love old cemeteries too, i can glance at one and tell you if it's a good one or not. i like the old headstones and not the newer ones that are flat on the ground, no character.

smiles, bee
xoxoxoxoxoxo

Linda said...

The contrast between cemeteries here on the East Coast and those on the West Coast has always made me think that those on your side of the country as so much more forlorn but at the same time, they speak volumes of the land and the people who crossed rivers and mountains and endured so much hardship to get there.

The stones and monuments speak of harder times and - in some cases - harder people than those who are buried under the grass and knolls of New England. They conjure up images of wagon trains and pioneers and the lawlessness of the Old West even though I'm sure that's not the case in all instances!

Lovely photos, Gracie, just lovely but they do give me a sense of loneliness more so than the cemeteries back here do. I think it's got to be the hard ground that covers the souls that does that.

More! More!

Traveling Bells said...

Great shots of history and beauty combined. I always feel sad about unmarked graves, like no one loved the person...but our Father certainly did.

Big hugs, honey...

Zane D. Clark said...

We have some of these old cemeteries her as well. They are old forgotten places, at least that is what it appears. Then you find that the cemetery improvement committee is working.

We were in the ghost town Aruora Neveda a few years back and the cemetery committee is still working there with funerals continuing to happen. Interesting.
z

Sandee said...

I love old cemeteries too. I used to visit them all the time, but anymore all I do is go boating. Oh well.

Have a terrific day. Big hug. :)

Desert Songbird said...

Cemeteries are not something that are seen to much around here, for some reason. We have them, but there seem to be just a few and they are quite large and have no personality. The small, "country church and grave yard" scenario is not seen as much as it is back east. I noticed quite a few of those when we were in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

Anonymous said...

A few of my favorite cemeteries are in Key West, FL, Saint Augustine, FL and Savannah, GA. Lots of old, interesting headstones, mausoleums and family vaults. In Key West, they buried people with a huge slab over the body so they wouldn't float away in hurricanes and floods.

I never thought to take photographs! You KNOW I will the next time I visit!

big hugs :)