Rural Cemetery

It never pays to alter my schedule in the morning as I am on autopilot until about 9am and changes tend to make everything go pear shaped. I heard somebody use that term the other day and haven't heard it since we lived in Scotland, so forgive me if this usage is a bit forced...I was dying to write it!

I left the house without my phone but decided I should be able to live without it for a morning. I did take my camera because I wanted to visit the rural cemetery which is near the hairdresser's. I even remembered my tennis shoes so I didn't have to walk around the dirt paths and dry grass in flip flops.

I love the rural cemetery. It is filled with old gravestones and  history.  The story goes that a young father, who had just arrived from Missouri in November 1854 drowned in a pond near the center of town. He was buried on land that was part of a Mexican grant given to one of the earliest settlers of Santa Rosa, Doña Maria Ignacio Lopez de Carillo. As more families needed burial places, the area became an unofficial cemetery. 

Although the grounds are tended, they are not manicured...I saw an older man, probably a volunteer, sweeping, his rake leaning against a handy stone, and could hear the sound of a weed whacker in the distance. The last person was laid to rest there in the 1930's,  and I don't suppose there are many family members left to tend the grounds, but the paths are kept free of weeds.  Although it isn't far away from a busy neighborhood, it is shady and peaceful. Most of the people buried here were pioneers, and their tombstones bear the names of prominent families in the town's history...Proctor, MacDonald, Grace and Juilliard are all names I have seen on street signs, parks, neighborhoods and buildings around town. Peter and Will both graduated from Maria Carillo High School.

The tombstones are old and often illegible but also eloquent.  Toppled columns and even one truncated tree shaped stone are common...symbols of lives cut short...and many were, as indicated by the dates on the stones. I've included in the extras a poignant stone with a small square on top reading, also one infant child,  and another which had actually been overgrown by a tree. I imagine it was a difficult decision to sacrifice the tree by cutting it down to release the gravestone in its roots.

In a final pear shaped moment, my camera battery died before I could snap a picture of the gentleman with the rake in a Santa Rosa Cemetery baseball cap. On the back was a logo: Where history comes to life.