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A line of rough stone grave markers extends across a grassy hill at the edge of the woods. The name "Johnie Asbury" is carved roughly into one stone, several letters backwards.
Asbury cemetery on Montcoal Mountain. Lyntha Scott Eiler, photographer. April 11, 1996. Coal River Folklife Collection (AFC 1999/008), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

A Matter of Folklife and Death

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It seems fitting that a week that includes such big holidays as Halloween, All Souls Day, and All Saints Day kicks off with a few smaller, lesser-known celebrations: National Visit a Cemetery Day (Oct. 29), Create a Great Funeral Day, Haunted Refrigerator Night, and – perhaps the scariest of all – Text Your Ex Day. Since I wasn’t sure I would have time to visit a cemetery after work hours this Tuesday, I decided to mark the occasion by taking a stroll through the quiet paths and grave markers that can be found in the American Folklife Center’s archival collections.

A man in a ball cap stands in a cemetery, one hand over his heart, the other extended and placed on top of a grave marker.
Bob Daniel, in the family cemetery on his farm. Lyntha Scott Eiler, photographer. October 4, 1996. Coal River Folklife Collection (AFC 1999/008), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

I have come across a lot of pictures of grave markers and cemeteries while digging through AFC’s field survey collections. I mean, a lot. I hesitate to deal in absolutes, so I won’t say that all of the AFC field surveys include surveys of cemeteries and graveyards, but a search for “cemetery” in the Library’s digital resources alone returns 571 photographs from the American Folklife Center – and these are only the photographs that were scanned as part of AFC’s digital presentations. The physical collections for each of these field surveys contain even more photographs, so it stands to reason there might be even more images of these resting places.

Old, weathered slate headstone from a Rhode Island cemetery. The stone marks the grave of Benjamin Davis, who died in 1784.
Gravestone of Benjamin Davis, d. 1784, in Cumberland, Rhode Island. Carl Fleischhauer, photographer. August 4, 1979. Rhode Island Folklife Project (AFC 1991/022), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

This might seem at odds with what many people think folklorists study – it’s called folklife, after all, not folkdeath – but this focus on graveyards is actually an incredibly relevant aspect of the field. Death, after all, is a major component of the human experience, and the ways we talk about, react to, and memorialize death’s presence in our everyday experience is heavily influenced by each of our own folk communities. Beyond the Grave: Cultures of Queens Cemeteries – a publication that can be found in AFC’s “cemeteries” subject file – sums this up beautifully:

“Cemeteries are not isolated burial grounds unto themselves – they are tied to people’s lives through customs, beliefs, and traditional arts. Within their walls are intimate expressions of love, grief, and faith; proud expressions of both individual and group identity; and occasional manifestations of whimsy and humor. They are places where relationships between the living and the dead are maintained; places where the feelings human beings have for their dead are displayed in tangible and artistic ways.”

Closeup photograph of tin flowers affixed to a church in a Catholic cemetery
Tin flowers in Catholic cemetery in Eureka, Nevada. Blanton Owen, photographer. November 12, 1989. Italian Americans in the West Project, (AFC 1989/022), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

In addition to providing a final resting place for the departed, cemeteries fulfill additional roles, including:

  • Providing a record of immigration patterns
  • Revealing attitudes towards death and the afterlife
  • Serving as a point of contact with the spirit of the dead (for some)
A white tombstone, of the type seen at Arlington National Cemetery, stands in a family graveyard. It is covered in fake flowers.
Veteran’s tombstone at the Bailey/Boggess cemetery in Bailey Mountain, West Virginia. Lyntha Scott Eiler, photographer. April 11, 1996. Coal River Folklife Collection (AFC 1999/008), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

The cemeteries shared here reflect this wide range of roles, as well as a range of form and function. Dennis Coelho, in the first draft of an essay included in the South-Central Georgia Folklife Project Collection (AFC 1982/010), wrote the following:

“The cemetery, and its decoration, defines the boundaries of the community, geographically, metaphysically, behaviorally, socially, perceptually and spiritually. The space of the dead delimits that of the functioning community. As wholes, the cemeteries are cultural artifacts susceptible to documentation, classification and analysis. As symbols and metaphors, they are perhaps the strongest human signs any culture makes, resonating like some very low pitched but very high amplitude instrument that plays always in the background, now loud, now soft but constant.”

Although he was writing about the cemeteries he was visiting as part of the field survey, the statement applies to the other graveyards and markers found throughout these collections.

Headstones with Japanese orthography rest in a field in Montana.
Gravestones at the old Havre cemetery (circa 1900) carrying Japanese orthography. Kay Young, photographer. August 4, 1979. Montana Folklife Survey Collection (AFC 1981/005), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Many of the cemeteries I saw reflected immigration patterns. For example, the Montana Folklife Survey Collection (AFC 1981/005) includes photographs of headstones with Japanese orthography, dating from the early 1900s. Some of the markers documented in the Italian Americans in the West Project (AFC 1989/022) include references to the individual’s town of birth, back in Italy.

Some of the gravestones I came across are large family plot stones, such as the Weiss family stone, which includes the inscription:

Weiss family headstone with poem inscribed under the family name: “He who finds companionship in rocks and comfort in the touch of vine and leaf, who climbs a hill for joy, and shouts a song, who loves the feel of wind, will know no grief, no loneliness that ever grows too great for he will never be quite desolate.”
Weiss family stone with inscription. Paula Johnson, photographer. August 16-18, 1979. Montana Folklife Survey Collection (AFC 1981/005), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

“He who finds companionship in rocks and comfort in the touch of vine and leaf, who climbs a hill for joy, and shouts a song, who loves the feel of wind, will know no grief, no loneliness that ever grows too great for he will never be quite desolate.”

Black and white photograph of simple ironwork crosses stuck in the hard dirt of a desert cemetery. Ironwork fences separate different sections of the cemetery.
Grave markers in Price Cemetery in Price, Utah. Steve Siporin, photographer. August 5, 1990. Italian Americans in the West Project (AFC 1989/022), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Others – like the ironwork crosses of Price Cemetery – include little to no information about the individual grave they mark, even as they can speak volumes about the special skills and care of the people who made the crosses to mark the spot where their loved ones rest.

I was intrigued by the similarity between the above-ground stone tombs that Louisiana cemeteries are so known for,

Paved paths divide rows of tombs in a Louisiana cemetery.
Row of tombs at ceremony in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. Mary Hufford, photographer. December 15, 1985. Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve Collection (AFC 1985/022), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

and the hand-made, wooden grave sheds found in pictures of Dorminy Mill cemetery, in Ben Hill County, Georgia. The stone tombs in Louisiana serve a slightly different purpose, due to the area’s extremely low water table, but the grave sheds add a similar sense of distinction and protection from the elements for the stone markers they surround.

A wooden structure, its roof covered in moss and pine needles, surrounds the stone markers of a grave.
Grave sheds (or grave houses) at Dorminy Mill cemetery, near Fitzgerald, Ben Hill County, Georgia. Dennis Coelho, photographer. Summer 1977. South-Central Georgia Folklife Project Collection (AFC 1982/010), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Amongst the saddest stones I came across in my journey through these photographs were the ones made to mark the final resting places of children, such as this one for “Baby,” depicting a tree trunk, leaves, and a lamb.

Carved marble headstone for "Baby," depicting a lamb, tree trunk and leaves.
Tombstone in the cemetery at Forsyth, Montana. Paula Johnson, photographer. August 12, 1979. Montana Folklife Survey collection (AFC 1981/005), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Some cemeteries – like this one from Havre, Montana – were situated in the middle of a vast landscape, the fields and sky stretching out for miles in every direction.

A small family cemetery, roughly 15 feet by 15 feet, stands in the middle of an empty range in Montana, marked by a black ironwork fence.
Mount Hope Cemetery in Havre, Montana. Kay Young, photographer. August 4, 1979. Montana Folklife Survey Collection (AFC 1981/005), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Others, like this cemetery in Cumberland, Rhode Island, were located much closer to the homes and businesses of the nearby living community.

An old cemetery stands at the top of a hill, overlooking the houses and churches of a small town.
Cemetery on Abbot Run Valley Road, in Cumberland, Rhode Island. Carl Fleischhauer, photographer. August 4, 1979. Rhode Island Folklife Project (AFC 1991/022), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

In some cases, I even came across pictures of elementary and middle schools that were built alongside historic cemeteries. This, too, reflects the attitudes different communities have towards the location and role of cemeteries. While some view cemeteries and graveyards as scary, or somber reminders of one’s mortality, others have a more casual relationship with their quiet neighbors – as is apparent in Dave Bailey’s story about an experience in his youth:

Dave Bailey: I’ll tell you what happened to us, one time. We used to have to walk out of Shumate’s Branch, all the way to Honey Bottom to catch the school bus, ‘cause the bus wouldn’t, didn’t go up the holler then. It would wash them bridges out at high water, and the road would get bad up in there, too, it’d snow too deep and he’d come that far and we’d have to walk out to catch the bus. And you could see the cemetery from the road then, gosh, I mean it was, you know, they kept it cleared off and everything. You could stand on the road and look up through there. And it was real early in the morning. And we seen something in one of them graves. We seen two legs stickin’ up out of one of them graves, just goin’ like this. Two legs. And we all seen that and every one of us run back and went to the house. The bus didn’t have nobody that day. Well Claude Droll [?] got up there, got down in that grave, stickin’ his legs up and he was wheelin’ ‘em around like this, you know? [laughs] And we – it scared us to death! We went back to the house!
Glenna Bailey: He did it to scare you?
Dave: Yeah! Just scarin’ us! Yeah. Nobody went to school that day.

Dave’s story reflects a more spirited attitude around cemeteries than might be expected but it is further evidence of the role cemeteries play in revealing attitudes towards death and the afterlife. In this instance, the graveyard can function as both a place to memorialize lost loved ones and provide an avenue for humorous discourse around death and the other things that scare us.

An obelisk-type grave marker stands in front of a thin iron fence, in a desert cemetery. Small groupings of other graves are seen in the background, a fair distance from the main focal point.
Grave markers in Castle Gate Cemetery in Helper, Utah. Steve Siporin, photographer. August 6, 1990. Italian Americans in the West Project (AFC 1989/022), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

One of the most unusual “cemeteries” I came across came from the Coal River Folklife Collection (AFC 1999/008). Instead of marking the graves of humans, the cardboard tombstones documented by folklorist Mary Hufford commemorate the names of the 1000+ West Virginia streams that have been buried under valley fill and sludge ponds, due to strip mining.

White cardboard tombstones, each inscribed with the name of a buried stream, stretch out across a field in front of the Appalachian Folklife Center.
“Mountain Top Cemetery,” spread out on field in front of Appalachian Folklife Center, created by Carol Jackson, an artist from Hinton, West Virginia. Mary Hufford, photographer. August 26, 1999. Coal River Folklife Collection (AFC 1999/008), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Titled “Mountain Top Cemetery,” these markers were created by artist Carol Jackson and installed in a field in front of the Appalachian Folklife Center. It is a moving folk art installation that explores the clash of economic development and ecologic preservation, and its cultural impact on region. Mining operations brought new jobs to the area, even as they drastically changed life for locals. Jackson’s use of cardboard tombstones to memorialize lost streams also highlighted another impact of strip-mining: a number of the cemeteries in the area (most of them small family cemeteries) were now restricted to visitors, covered by landslides or sludge ponds, or relocated altogether to the other side of the county. Mae Bongalis, whose family had been interned in a family cemetery since the 1800s, was among the community members affected:

Mary Hufford: Do you have a family cemetery?
Mae Bongalis: Yes, it’s down on Indian Creek, way up on that mountain down there. And my mother, my grandmother, they’re all buried up there.
Mary: Is it still – it’s still there?
Mae: Mm-hmm.
Mary: When was the last time you went there?
Mae: It’s been a long time because they strip mined around there and we couldn’t –
Kostis “Shorty” Bongalis: They stripped it, you couldn’t go through there.
Mae: I couldn’t stand it.

Mae’s husband, Kostis, pointed out that the cemetery wasn’t completely off limits. “They blocked that road off. If you stop at the guard shack,” he explained, “they gotta give you a pass to go to the cemetery back there.” This seemed to echo the same restrictions experienced by visitors to Graveyard Hill, an African American cemetery near the mining town of Edwight, West Virginia. According to notes by fieldworkers, Performance Coal Company opens the mountain road around Shumate’s Branch one weekend a year, to allow public access to the cemetery. This is the only time that descendants of those buried in the cemetery can return to tend the graves of loved ones and hold a family reunion.

A woman in a white shirt and maroon pants bends down to place flowers at a forest grave, surrounded by ferns.
Daisy Ross cleaning and decorating a grave. Terry Eiler, photographer. May 1996. Coal River Folklife Collection (AFC 1999/008), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Dave Bailey’s family cemetery, in contrast, was relocated altogether:

Mary: Was there a church up there? Or a cemetery or anything like that?
Dave: The cemetery – when Peabody took over the land, moved the houses, they moved the cemetery. To Piney View.
Mary: Piney View, where’s that?
Dave: That is about, uh, let’s see –
Mary: Is that over by New River?
Dave: Six or seven mile below Whitesville.
Mary: Oh.
Dave: On Route 3.
Mary: On the other side of Boone County?
Dave: Yeah, it’s other side of Boone County, yeah. See they – they moved my dad’s grave, they moved my sister’s grave, they moved my grandfather, my grandmother, all my people were buried there, it was a family cemetery.

It is a significant change, especially considering Dave’s earlier story about the cemetery that occupied the land adjacent to his old school bus stop.

Sally Webb’s family cemetery on Shumate’s Branch had also been relocated. When her husband died, Sally opted to bury him on their property, behind their house. The family installed a wooden lattice fence around the small plot and placed a bench nearby for the comfort of visiting family. A handmade cross stands sentry over the site, just behind the bench (not visible in this photograph). Christmas lights adorn the cross, which Sally turns on at night to illuminate the grave.

Two women sit on a bench overlooking a grave surrounded by wooden garden lattice.
Annette Blair and Cookie Cole at the grave of Sally Webb’s husband, Dennis. Mary Hufford, photographer. July 7, 1997. Coal River Folklife Collection (AFC 1999/008), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Sometimes, the work we do here at the Library feels like visiting a cemetery – and not just when we find ourselves sifting through photographs of grave markers. Many of the manuscript papers, the photographs, and even some of the films and videotape recordings in our care tell the stories of people who have passed on. Their letters and memoirs, the grainy VHS tapes set to record on extended play, the crackles and pops from fragile wax cylinders preserved in digital copies…all these items are echoes of people who laughed and cried, who lived, and left impressions in the lives of others. Even in the case of extremely large and thoroughly catalogued collections, we can only hope to capture and understand a fragment of who each of these people were. This, however, speaks to the “why” of the work we do – especially when it comes to documenting cemeteries. The “why” is beautifully summed up in the closing paragraph of the Coelho essay I mentioned earlier:

“The Wiregrass graveyards are the most durable expressive statements we have of a set of cultural systems borne by people that cooked Bar-B-Q, lived in dogtrot houses, sang Barbara Allen, Casey Jones and Swing Low Sweet Chariot, fed sixty people at homecoming, shelled peas on the front porch, went fishing in the evening, and slept under a quilt at night. The region comes to us a lattice-work of interconnected dynamic elements that speak to us from the past and present of order, stability and faith.”

Headstone at Cumberland, Rhode Island cemetery. Stone reads: “In memory of Mrs. Anna, the Amiable Consort of Mr. Ebenezer Metcalf; departed this life October ynth, 1795. Aged 39 Years.”
Headstone at Cumberland, Rhode Island cemetery. The inscription reads: In memory of Mrs. Anna, the Amiable Consort of Mr. Ebenezer Metcalf. Carl Fleischhauer, photographer. August 4, 1979. Rhode Island Folklife Project (AFC 1991/022), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

For this National Visit a Cemetery day, I encourage you all to stop into your local graveyard. Wander between the headstones. Read the names and dates. Consider the form the grave markers in that particular cemetery take. Are they all the same? Are they elaborately carved? What do they say about the people buried below, and what might they say about the people who tend their grave? We may never know the full truth of all the people memorialized on the stones in cemeteries, but if we want to understand the beliefs, practices and stories that make up our diverse communities, the markers on these (hopefully) final resting places are a good place to start.

Four men stand around a grave in a desert cemetery. The grave is marked by a curved headstone, as well as a flat rectangular stone atop the buried individual.
Dan Ramasco (striped shirt), Bruno Ramasco (orange shirt) and Loui Cerri (with cowboy hat) visit cemetery with AFC field team. Howard Marshall stands to the left, recording their discussion. Carl Fleischhauer, photographer. October 1979. Paradise Valley Folklife Project Collection (AFC 1991/021), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Additional Resources

Check out these digital collections and resources from the American Folklife Center:

Visit the American Folklife Center in person to view the following collections and items:

  • Donald R. Hammerman collection of Northern Illinois University cultural journalism projects (AFC 1983/019) – a collection of illustrated typescript journals about community life in Illinois, based on interviews with older community members.
    • Includes “Corpse to Cadaver” by Pam Strom. This entry concerns a local story about a body-snatching incident which rocked the local community in 1849
  • Grave Images: San Luis Valley – by Kathy T. Hettinga. The published collection of Hettinga’s 14-year project to document funerary folk art in the rural and largely Hispanic communities in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado.
  • AFC’s “cemetery” subject file includes:
    • “Graveyard Tourism Is Alive and Kicking” – a August 1997 article by Elizabeth Seay in the Wall Street Journal
    • Teacher resources for exploring historic cemeteries
    • An exhibition guide for “Elysium: A Gathering of Souls,” an exhibit of Sandra Russell Clark’s photographs of New Orleans Cemeteries
    • The printed brochure for Beyond the Grave: Cultures of Queens Cemeteries, a project of the Folk Arts Program at Queens Council on the Arts

Interested in getting involved with cemetery conservation? Check out these links:

Want to read more Library of Congress blog posts about cemeteries, memorials, and spooky items? Check out these posts:

  • From Folklife Today: Beyond 21 StepsVHP Liaison Specialist Kerry Ward writes about the United States Army Tomb Guards, who guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery
  • From Minerva’s Kaleidoscope: Memorial Day Past and Present: Commemorating with Collections – Katie McCarthy shares resources for kids and families for Memorial Day
  • From Unfolding History: In Halloween Highlights, reference librarian Loretta Deaver shares unusual and haunting items from the Manuscript Division

Comments (3)

  1. I loved this presentation: i grew up in Sicily and i remember going to my hometown cemetery with my aunt when i was little. We would visit the tomb of my great grandmother first and then the tombs of other family members who had died before long before i was born. My hometown has a monumental cemetery, that is protected by the country’s superintendency of historical monuments, it is a literal city of the dead with tens of thousands of “inhabitants”. The cemetery covers 55 acres, even so space is at a premium, so thousands of people are interred in “apartments” large structures several stories high instead of the traditional graves.

  2. Great (and timely) to see this array of findings in American Folklife Center collections! I especially like the sculptured metal grape vine on the fence surrounding a grave in Eureka, Nevada, no doubt a reminder of one of the pleasures of a life now over. Meanwhile, the photo of Daisy Ross decorating a grave in Raleigh County, West Virgina, and the link to the webcast of Alan and Karen Singer Jabbour’s Botkin lecture reminded me of their wonderful book, _Decoration Day in the Mountains: Traditions of Cemetery Decoration in the Southern Appalachians_. As most readers will know, Alan was the founding director of the American Folklife Center. Written after his retirement, the book is published by the University of North Carolina Press. Thank you, Meg, for this evocative blog about “a major component of the human experience.” Much appreciated.

  3. My mother’s side of the family traces back to the Mayflower and many were in the current Boston area villages for decades. Two years ago, my husband and I were wandering the city and stopped in a few graveyards to read tombstones. One cemetery that we couldn’t get into had names that were very familiar to me, and while the ones we could see weren’t family members, I suspect some of my ancestors were their eternal neighbors.

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