Forgotten Souls
We recently went to Buffalo NY to visit family and friends there. We try to do this at least once a year. This time we took my mother with us. She's 82 years old and we figured it would probably be her last chance to go back home to visit. While there, she wanted to visit our cousin Loraine who lives in Ontario NY. Loraine is 98. So it is more than likely to be the last time these two see each other. It was a pleasant visit albeit somber. Loraine and mom talked about old times and family (all of whom have past on). Loraine lives in an appartment complex that is situated behind a very old cemetary.
I've kind of had a fascination for old cemetaries and the the history you can find in them so I decided to peruse this one while the ladies chatted. All the graves were from the 1800s. as I read them, I noticed that a certain section had people who died very young; 1-30 years old. I,m not too big on historical events, but I assume the early deaths occurred during the polio epidemic. I believe Small pox was earlier.
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This made me a little sad but as I went on I saw some that had lived full healthy lives together such as this couple. They both lived to there late seventies, which was pretty good back then.
this gentleman lived to 85.
The saddest part of my little excursion was seeing so many of these grave unattended.
Some were not even readable.
A lot of them were broken, in dissarray, and almost buried. I assume there is no longer anyone left in the family to tend to them. These are the forgotten souls. I'm sure every cemetary has some graves like these. It's very sad.
Surprisingly in the middle of all this I found a new grave stone. It was for a family that had died in the 1800s but someone had placed a new stone there.
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Again the children in the family died very young. It must have been tragic for this couple. The stone was placed sideways from the rest and I assume it was in the center of the four original graves.
After being back here in Roswell NM, we heard a news story that was a little upsetting about a cemetary in Springer NM that was selling grave sites that were already occupied to new buyers. apparently the cemetary is so old that records had been lost about who was buried there. More forgotten souls.