Old, Broken Down, and Forgotten (thanks PTB)

Cemeteries fascinate... probably most people... but especially me. Especially on cold, rainy days (or so PTB claims, but it may be the truth). There is something both sad and hopeful in the combination of fresh rain on an old cemetery.

In the spirit of fascination as well as investigation, I included "visit cemetery" on my list of errands to run in Ithaca Monday. I've exhausted (for now) the need to search in the Grove, so I'm on to other towns... Danby, Lodi, Reynoldsville, Watkins, Auburn, and Ithaca. My people have been here for a very, very long time. They're buried all over the place and I like to find them. Anyway, we got a tarp at Lowe's, wasted time in Wal-mart, then made our way up the east hill to the sacred acreage located next to Cornell University.

First burial: 1790

Charity Vanorder buried: 1842

Cornell University founded: 1865

This cemetery is just as old as the one in Trumansburg, but there are some big differences. The cemetery in Ithaca is balanced precariously on a steep hill. The edge of it is a cliff. Grove Cemetery in Trumansburg is mostly flat. Unlike the Grove's map and records (which I once unwittingly complained a bit about) the organization and record keeping of the Ithaca Cemetery is lacking at best. To find Charity Vanorder's plot would require a lot of time spent staring at stones. This leads to the most noticeable difference: maintenance. I'm not talking about mowing the grass either. I'm pretty sure that Grove Cemetery is typical as far as cemeteries go. It's old and the older stones look old and some are illegible or crumbling, but that's nature. It's obvious that even the older stones have been looked after and reverenced. In some cases, they have been fixed up or even replaced. On the other hand, the cemetery I visited on Monday had been "taken care of" in the opposite manner and not just by nature. It's likely that I may never find Charity's stone because a large amount of vandalization has taken place in the cemetery between Stewart and University. The fascination I feel for cemeteries is tinged with reverence for lives that have been lived, struggles that have been triumphed, foundations that have been laid --for people to come. Unfortunately, not everyone feels the same way. The widespread scattering of broken stones on the edge of the cliff was ample evidence of that --perhaps the consequence of establishing a large institution for young (sometimes drunk) people right next to something so inherently fascinating. I left feeling sad and disappointed.