"People are just dying to get in there." (that's for you Dad)
Today we visited Woodland Cemetery. For you history buffs or cemetery lovers, here are some sites with info on this cemetary.
http://www.graveyards.com/IL/Adams/woodland/wood.html
http://www.gardnermuseumarchitecture.org/woodland.php
This is a HUGE, beautiful cemetery located on one of the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River. I remember as a kid, our class would walk from St Mary's School over to Woodland Cemetary. We had a contest one year to see who would find the oldest gravesite. My friend Lisa and I found one from the 1600's and we won a dum-dum sucker. That was the big time back then!
It was such a beautiful day today so we thought it would be neat to walk through there with the boys. We looked for beautiful leaves to take home, bugs for our neverending supply in the bug boxes and we looked for the oldest gravestone also. We also looked for the newest as it is such an old cemetery and we weren't sure if people were still being buried there. Drew found the oldest which was 1672 and Todd found the most recent in 2002. Todd also challenged the kids to find a gravestone with a date 100 years before the year they were born and to find someone who lived to be exactly 100. It was a beautiful walk with beautiful sites. It may seem morbid to some but I think it's neat to looks at all of these headsstones and wonder about their history and their lives. I took a bunch of pictures, here are a few.
A view looking up one of the hills.
This place is so big, we didn't even begin to walk it all but we walked a lot. This place is rich in history and is so scenic. 
Something about this leaf caught my eye. The way the sun was coming through the trees and the beautiful color in the leaf. I just had to take a picture of it.
My boys exploring and collecting.
This is the view of the Mississippi River and the bridges from the top of the bluff at the cemetary.
11 comments:
Great pictures Kelly. I've always wanted to do that Halloween tour, but at my age walking around on uneven ground, in the dark, IN A CEMETERY, might not be the best of ideas. Glad you guys had a good time. And I LOVE walking through cemeteries thinking about what kinds of lives they had, who they loved and who they left behind. I'm always sad at a young death, and I bet Woodland is full of that.
mY H is a preacher and has done quite a few funerals, so conseqently, my Corey is FASCINATED with cementarys. This one that you photographed though is KEWL!
"People are just dying to get in there."
AAAAHHHAHAHAH!! I laughed right out loud at this one because my dad used to SAY THE SAME THING!!!
I almost feel bad about it now - but that cemetery reminds me of sled riding.
Shawn lived 1 block away in grade school, we'd wait for dark, slip under the metal gates, and go to the back of the cemetery to sled ride (very few stones in that area)...but you had to stop before reaching the bluff or you'd go right off the cliff into Hwy 57:)
Then we'd play King of the Mountain on the real steep slopes covered in snow. And if someone new was with us, when we'd leave one of us would sneak ahead and hide behind a gravestone and scare the bajeezes out of them.
No disrespect for those buried there - just a fun place for us to play (in the dark).
Sounds like a great day, Kelly. Growing up in Ursa, my brother and sister and several of the neighborhood kids had so many adventures in an old cemetery behind our neighborhood.
It was back in a field and all the tombstones were at least 150 years old and most older than that. The cemetery was not kept up at that time...it is now though. I should walk back there sometime and take a look.
Thanks for bringing to mind wonderful memories of childhood. :) have a great day!
It looks almost exactly like the cemetary a block from my house. I practically grew up in that cemetary (i know that sounds weird but my sis and grandparents are buried there) and now my boys love to walk through it too.
There is just something so peaceful about cemetaries. And they have a way of putting things in perspective again.
Beautiful!
After touring the civil war sites-I have a renewed interst in the cemetaries too...interesting all you can learn there...not that I wanted to learn about Matt's antics! So I could have seen him and friends in ER one night from a sle ding accident on hway57????? Oh matt you deserve anything your 2 boys dish out....
wow... great pix!
and a great teachable moment for the boys... I'll have to try that one day. thanks for the idea...
although... we don't live by anything that beautiful.
I have to go there! So cool Rob and the boys would love that! your pictures are amazing! Thanks for sharing!!
Love the first picture especially!
I have always loved that cemetery. In fourth grade we took a field trip there & did all sorts of cool math & history activities.
Also,I have relatives (very distant:) buried there & when I was young my Gma Billie would take us there to clean the gravestones & weed around them.
Way to go Todd for getting them thinking too!
My dad used to do that with Jenna & me too! I miss that a lot.You guys are such great parents!
wow!It looks awesome.
And the kids seem to enjoyed it!
If our cemeteries looked that great,I'd like to do something similar too.Once they don't I have to think of other ways to develop their exploring skills!
xoxo
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