There is a theme to my choices today ... cemeteries! Both authors like to wander through them, especially the older ones. Both had experiences when young with them.

Greg Melville considers them to be overlooked and underused historical resources. You can learn a lot from them. His first summer job was as seasonal help, mowing around the tombstones in his local cemetery. He was young and energetic and mowing quickly when one of the full time employees took him aside, told him to slow down, look around, pay attention to what he was doing. He did so and started to recognize some of the names in the old part of the graveyard as names he saw on streets and buildings and parks downtown. Then there was a section with similar death dates for those died during an epidemic. There were sections for veterans of the two World Wars, and so on. This would spark a life long interest in history! In some cemeteries, he learned, discrimination is still evident, those where blacks and whites were divided, and even now one will get care, one won't (it's getting better). Many city parks are built over old ones with little care given as to who lies beneath. Chinese could not be buried, even in the local potters field, or they had to pay a fee when no one else did. Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America's Cemeteries is an interesting read and includes discussions on word origins and changes ... undertaker to mortician to funeral director, or coffin to casket (it's the shape), or when embalming began (there were scams here!). At some point cemeteries became separate from churches and an industry was born. This changed the layout (think flat, easy to mow) and using the cemetery. for weddings and concerts. Interesting note: those planned communities, where everything looks the same? That design came from cemeteries! A really engaging read.

That took me to A Tomb With a View: the Stories & Glories of Graveyards, by Peter Ross. These are graveyards in the UK. Here, the author spends time learning about who is buried in various graveyards, and how they ended up where they did. Why are flowers still left at a centuries old marker? There is a familiar story here, too, for some of us anyway, about Greyfriars Bobby, a small dog who returned to his masters grave every morning for years. And an interesting story of a small graveyard, wedged between two busy roads that is unmarked, with no names ... everyone there died of a plague when there was concern that the body could transmit the disease, so they were buried far away (at that time). What happens when a graveyard fills up? There is some concern too, over the trend for cremation and the scattering of ashes. If a graveyard is no longer used, it will fall into disrepair, and, without markers for the deceased, we're losing bits of history. Food for thought, as they say!

Reading Hermit With Dog