How I spent my Wednesday morning

One of the older ladies at Church is a genealogy buff and told me one of the many things she does to make information available to others is to take pictures of headstones in cemeteries, then upload the pictures and the information from them to http://www.findagrave.com/. This gal uses a walker and I figured she couldn't get around to take pictures very well, so I offered to pick her up and go to the cemetery and she could tell me where to take pictures.

I've been to this cemetery before and let me tell you: it is no easy "walk across manicured lawns, pausing to bend down and take a picture every few feet" kind of task to photograph there. It is a hard scrabble cemetery on a serious hill. The roads between each long row had been recently graded and the dirt was soft. I climbed up and down the hills and up and down the graves to get the pictures. There were many unmarked graves and ones with 35 year old funeral home markers that were almost impossible to read. There were many homemade grave markers as well. It made me sad that many families can't afford or don't choose to buy or make even a tiny headstone to mark their loved one's burial place.

This unflattering picture of me shows what happens when someone says, "Oh, just plant a bush on me and let me go back to nature." I had quite a time getting in to photograph the business side of that stone. There were a few like that.

I took about 225 pictures today and I was beat! It was getting hot and I'm, ahem, not accustomed to all the climbing and crouching I did today. I hope to get back at least one more time with my friend before we move.