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Mar 14

You may think it’s strange, but…

I am fascinated by old cemeteries. As I walk down the rows in a cemetery, it’s like walking through pages of a book.  I become engrossed in the story told by the lines forever etched in the stones. It’s more than just discovering how long a person lived, you learn whether they were a man or a woman, if they died a young tragic death, or lived a long life. Sometimes, you discover they were a beloved parent or spouse.  The dates alone tell you a lot about their life.  Did they live before the invention of the automobile, did they live during the great depression or a major war? Although not always a direct indicator, you get a hint of their financial status based on whether they have a small modest stone or an extravagant monument.

On a recent trip to the Florida panhandle I found a small cemetery right off Highway 129.  It is so small it barely caught my eye as I sped past.  But my interest was tweaked so I turned around for a short pit stop.

After doing a little research, I found out that the cemetery is actually three separate small family cemeteries situated next to each other.  The families are Frink, Peeples and McCall.

The earliest legible grave marker is Noble Kiler Frink, whose life was a short 10 years, 3 weeks and 9 days in 1853.  A sad note that 11 of the 54 buried in the Frink, Peeples, McCall cemetery were less than one year old.  Makes you thankful for our medical break-throughs. It was sad to learn that between 1915 and 1919, one Peeples couple lost two infant daughters and two infant sons.

Then you have the success of the long life of Matilda Virginia Johnson Hinton who lived to the ripe old age of 90, b 1846, d. 1936. Wow, what history she was able to witness.  She was 15 years old when the Civil War trouble started brewing,  54 at the turn of the century, 68 at the start of World War 1 and 83 on October 29th, 1929 known in history as Black Friday, the beginning of the great depression. She lived 2 years after the economy started to turn around and begin it’s long road to recovery.

I will continue to be drawn to cemeteries and take pit stops during my travels, but I promise not to bore you anymore with my ramblings.  Unless, of course, I find something super interesting!

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