{"id":9818,"date":"2010-02-02T17:10:35","date_gmt":"2010-02-02T22:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9818"},"modified":"2010-12-21T14:55:41","modified_gmt":"2010-12-21T19:55:41","slug":"the-block-island-cemetery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9818","title":{"rendered":"The Block Island Cemetery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I love cemeteries, and I love old cemeteries in particular.  The one on Block Island is very special.  It&#8217;s on a hillside facing the sea, and it is completely representative of the community that has been out there for centuries.  The same names dominate.  Ball.  Littlefield.  Mott.  Dodge.  Champlin.  I went there a bunch of times so these photos obviously came from different days.  When I went there with Siobhan and Ben, Siobhan found the little &#8220;Westcott&#8221; plot, with Pat&#8217;s ancestors buried there.  Lots of engraved anchors and ships.  Lots of vessels lost at sea.  This is the ocean life.  Every stone seems to have a story.  It takes a bit to get accustomed to all the graves of babies.  There was one family plot where there were 5 children, 4 of whom died as babies, and the 5th only lived til 24.  I stared as hard as I could at the moss-eaten stones of the two parents, who both far outlived all of their children, trying to see into the past, and feel what they must have felt. Their lives seemed to be right at my fingertips, I felt very close to them, or to something.   It was overwhelming.  The saddest stone I saw was a tiny white rounded one, half sunk into the earth, and all it said on it was: &#8220;Infant Child&#8221;.  Either the name of the baby has been submerged in the dirt, or it died before it could be named. Sweet little thing.  It&#8217;s a beautiful place, perched on a high hill, with an amazing windy view of hills and ocean, with the ancestors of the families living there now, all buried there.   In creepier moments it reminded me of Edgar Lee Masters&#8217; <i>Spoon River Anthology<\/i>, and, even more bleak, <i>Our Town<\/i>, because nobody wants the afterlife to be like the ones depicted in both works of literature.  There were times, on cloudy days, in a Spoon River mood, when all of the &#8220;He rests in Jesus&#8221; epitaphs seemed more like wishful thinking and a staving off of anxiety.  What griefs lie here, what regrets, and unforgiven feuds?  What things left unsaid?  What pain? Having the space to think about these things, which is really the beginning of storytelling, of narratives, imagining your way into the lives of others, is one of the reasons I love cemeteries so much. But it really is a peaceful place, with families all buried together, facing seaward.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09035.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09035.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09011.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09011.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09010.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09010.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09673.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09673.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09020.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09020.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09018.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09018.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09044.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09044.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09055.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09055.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09092.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09092.jpg\" width=\"525\" height=\"700\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09073.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09073.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09667.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09667.jpg\" width=\"525\" height=\"700\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09077.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09077.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09085.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09085.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09087.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09087.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09096.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09096.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09102.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09102.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09103.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09103.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09117.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09117.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09648.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09648.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09653.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09653.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09660.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09660.jpg\" width=\"525\" height=\"700\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"DSC09659.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/DSC09659.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I love cemeteries, and I love old cemeteries in particular. The one on Block Island is very special. It&#8217;s on a hillside facing the sea, and it is completely representative of the community that has been out there for centuries. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9818\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[1537],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9818"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9818"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31254,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9818\/revisions\/31254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}