Wildwood Cemetery

  This area belongs to the Moorheads. Frances and Lucien built the house my mother has lived in for 48 years. They were the only owners other than my mother. Lucian died in in 1940 and his wife lived  alone for 21 years before she died.  I only find two stones with the Brockway name on them. One is here. Olive Brockway was married to  Robert Moorehead at a time when Brockway was still Brockwayville.  One of the Moorehead wives was born in Camus, Ireland. Judging by the size and style of the headstones, the family must have held some prominence in the area at some point.
*****Click on the photo above to see more of this cemetery.

Wildwood Cemetery, Brockway

  This is one of my favorite cemeteries. It's at the end of  Maple Street, making it a "dead end street", wink, wink. When I was a kid, my mom had friends on this street and we visited them often. All the kids on the street would ride bikes to the cemetery. Sometimes we'd play tag, hide and seek or just find a spot, drop our bikes and sit and talk.  It was never a creepy place to any of us. As I got older, I've always felt drawn to it. It is part of a somewhat traditional walk for our family. We go up 5th Ave (the only street in Brockway with steps), across the last street on the top of the hill toward the water tower, then up through the woods, into Miller's fields, and down over the hill and into the cemetery. And for any Geocachers, there are two caches hidden in this area. I've taken my nephews (now 33) this way many times as they grew up, and then my own kids and now my nephews kids, making it a three generation jaunt.  I often walk there because it has sloping hills and it's so peaceful, really clears my head. Wildwood is so familiar to me that I had never taken the time to photograph it so last week I spent almost 3 hours there, doing just that. I walked in and tried to look at it like I would any new cemetery. To really see what I normally walk right past.Wildwood Cemetery Brockway PA

St. Marks

Today St. Marks was briefly visited. Driving East from Oil City on 322, I saw a sign for St Mark's Memorial Chapel on the left. I thought there might be a cemetery there so I turned around and went back and sure enough, I was right. It's an interesting little place. If you look in the back of this pic, you can see a few stones leaning against the wall of the church. Unfortunately I didn't have much time. I took a few pics and put it on my list of Must Return to Places. Look for future updates.

Maybe a biased opinion

While I may not know nor understand the technological steps in making a Tombstone, I do recognize craftsmanship. With the advancement of technology and the modern computer age, one can really see the impact of technology in tombstone construction.

With the ability to create near perfection comes the ease to become more descriptive and more straight to the point. More cookie cutter if you will - leaving less to the imagination. Once works of art that told a story, modern tombstones or headstones craftsmanship has seemingly taken a back seat to perfection. More modern tombstones are very perfect. Almost to the point of being an annoyance. They bear pictures engraved into the stone, with perfect edges, graphics of trucks, animals or a statue of the deceased. All great tributes in their own right. But, one thing seems to be lacking, character. They almost seem too perfect and leave no mystery or paint no unseen picture like the monuments of our forefathers.

It's blatantly evident if you visit several cemeteries over a short period of time. The newer architectural designs stand out, for leaving nothing to the imagination; though they do tell a story, it's right there for you to read. However, it doesn't leave the viewer wanting to know more, or wondering what that person was truly about or how they passed. Usually the picture and story in modern headstones is there for you, all you ever want to know about the deceased.

On our "cemetery walks" for http://www.cemeteryblog.com  we have really taken notice of the less imaginative displays.   Several times in my excursions to cemeteries we have taken notice of the grandeur. Older tombstones paint a picture, they give you a glimpse, a short look to leave you wonder. Although, some are not spectacular works of art, they tug at your heart and mind prompting more, creating and giving you a story, wanting to know more, feel more. We have seen simple stones bearing, "Baby Deloe" nothing else,

 what could the story here entail - tell us more. The mind still wanders, it tries to create a scenario but there is no closure. A modern marvel can give you a picture, the story and the conclusion. A nice tribute but no room to wonder or expand on - closed case. I imagine that even one day folks will have an LED screen playing computer generated graphics or video of our loved ones. For some that's great, maybe that will be the headstones of the future, after all the possibilities are endless.

Not to belittle the modern tributes, they say what the deceased's mourners wish to let everyone know about the life and memory of that person.

Maybe I am biased but, old time history, craftsmanship, architecture & stories are what make cemeteries come alive for me and what keeps me wanting to discover and experience more of them.