By Esta Pratt-Kielley. It’s a sunny February day as Cathie Murray walks up a trail in Fayette, Maine, snow crunching beneath her boots. She comes upon a grove of tall cathedral pines and oak trees. It’s silent except for the patters of squirrels and the wind rustling the tops of the trees. This is the […]
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Want to Lead a Better Life? The Secret Is in the Cemetery.
By Joe Kloc. For most of my life, I’ve found cemeteries to be foreboding places, best left to funeral processions and gravediggers. But seven years ago I met a man named Steve Baldwin who changed my thinking on the matter. Then about 60, Baldwin was known to some around New York City as the Parrot Guy, […]
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The New Way to Return to Old Traditions: An Interview with Casper Creek Natural Cemetery
By Scott McAfee. Like any other industry, death care evolves and experiences shifts in how things are done over time. One of the last significant shifts occurred in the early 19th century when disease and overcrowding made it unsafe to continue churchyard burials. Since then, traditional cemetery burials have been the norm and there have […]
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Wreaths Across America Begins Annual Journey to Arlington National Cemetery
By Emily Molina. Wreaths Across America (WAA) commences its yearly journey to place wreaths upon every eligible marker at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C. Dec. 11. The annual procession, initiated by Maine businessman Morrill Worcester almost 30 years ago, has become a holiday tradition. WAA’s mission is to “remember, honor, and teach” about the […]
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3,000 wreaths, destined for veterans’ headstones in Ottawa, stolen
By Peter Szperling. OTTAWA — Thousands of handmade wreaths, meant for a ceremony to honour fallen servicemen and servicewomen at Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa, have been stolen. 6,024 wreaths were to be placed on veterans’ headstones this upcoming Sunday. Approximately 3,000 were taken from a rural area just outside of Maxville, Ont. this past weekend. […]
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Conserving Jewish cemeteries, one stone at a time
By Kevin Riordan. On an otherwise quiet morning at Har Nebo, the venerable Jewish cemetery in Northeast Philadelphia, the clinking of Joe Ferrannini’s hammer and chisel was the sound of history being made to last. Ferrannini has been meticulously reassembling, resetting and cleaning the broken, sunken, fallen or discolored stones on 32 graves at Har […]
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Pioneer cemeteries say ‘enough’ to vandalism, hope to install cameras
By Kevin Harden. Volunteers who maintain two historic cemeteries in Newberg have had it with vandalism at the properties. They’re seeking more than $9,000 in a state grant to install security cameras they hope will reduce incidents. Newberg’s Fernwood Pioneer Cemetery Association applied for the state funds in early May as part of a $14,800 […]
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Huge cemetery with at least 250 rock-cut tombs discovered in Egypt
By Owen Jarus. About 250 tombs, some with fancy layouts and hieroglyphics, have been discovered cut into a hill at Al-Hamidiyah cemetery to the east of Sohag, in Egypt’s Eastern Desert, about 240 miles (386 kilometers) southeast of Cairo, Egypt’s antiquities ministry said. The tombs were constructed at different times in Egypt’s history, the archaeologists […]
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County pledges new protections for old cemeteries
By Jill Palermo. Prince William supervisors pledged Tuesday to change how the county protects historic cemeteries and gravesites after it was discovered that a local brewery cleared land believed to hold an estimated 75 to 100 century-old graves with ties to Thoroughfare – a historically African American and Native American community near Haymarket. Supervisor Pete […]
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Catholic Cemeteries holds 29th burial of indigent, unborn
By Joyce Duriga. On a sunny fall day, Nov. 12, Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Chicago held its 29th committal service to bury indigent people and the unborn from Cook County at Mount Olivet Cemetery, 2755 W. 111th St. The burial included the remains of one unidentified person, 48 unborn babies, and 114 indigent […]
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