Monday walk…an odd walk

After an enjoyable and educational day with Marsha (AlwaysWrite), Jodie (Jodie’s Touch of Style), Jodie’s husband (and photographer), and Leslie, one of her models, Marsha and I planned a museum trip for Friday morning before I headed home. Dicovering the museum was closed (opening, naturally, the next day), we changed direction, heading for the IOOF cemetery. What’s that you might ask? I guessed it meant International Order of Odd Fellows. Almost. The “I” stands for “Independent” rather than “International.” But cemetery it was either way and I do enjoy browsing through cemeteries, especially older ones where there are interesting headstones. Here are a few that caught my eye.

I’d guess that Petra was Catholic as this is a very Catholic headstone. You’ll see more of this type of presentation in European cemeteries.

I found H.C. Tyler’s stone intriguing. Was it made this way or did some part break off? Perhaps H.C. was a lover of rocks and stones. OK, probably not but you have to admit it’s not the usual, either in stone or lettering.

Marsha warned me that the cemetery wasn’t well-kept and unfortunately, she was right. Here’s an excellent example of that. Someone spent a lot of money on a beautiful mosaic remembrance and not only was it breaking up, it was covered with branches and dead leaves.

You can see from the inscription and the choice of a headstone that wasn’t the usual bland stone that Allie was indeed beloved.

As we walked back to the parking area, a small grave caught my eye. Even though it looks big here, it was at most a yard in length, not very wide, and almost hidden by bushes and the tree. Reading the inscription (following photo) tugged at my heart.

How difficult to buy a son less than two when he passed away! We have an almost 10-month old grandson now and I can’t imagine the grief we and his parents would feel were this to happen. If you have children or grandchildren, give them a hug if you can, send a text filled with love, call to tell them your love them, and thank God that you can.

We didn’t have a dessert after this but we did have an excellent lunch with Marsha’s husband, after which I drove back home. It had been a thoroughly enjoyable weekend. We were missing a couple of blogging friends, Lisa from Micro of the Macro and Donna of Wind Kisses. I did however have coffee and lunch with Donna on my way up, always a wonderful time.

Jo’s Monday Walk 1.16.23

In memoriam

Thursday Doors…Fougerolles mausoleums

The town of Fougerolles, France lies in a place central to many places we visited during my last trip.  When we drove through, we passed  a walled cemetery that always caught our attention, but we were normally either on the way to or coming back from somewhere else.  Finally at the end of a long day, we stopped and, despite the heat and our tiredness, wandered through a cemetery unlike many in the US.  It was worth the stop, but it did make the cool drinks we had when we got make even better.  🙂  If these shots were in black and white or it was night…well, can anyone say “Dark Shadows?”

I’ll be working most of the day, so I won’t be able to read and comment on posts much until tomorrow…which is our 33rd  anniversary, so I might not be around much either.  We’re planning a bike ride.

More or les

A little humor to end your week and start the weekend. This is a postcard of my favorite tombstone in Boot Hill, the cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona, the town where Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Virgil and Morgan Earp faced the Clantons and the McLaurys in the gunfight at the OK Corral.