Monday, February 17, 2014

Sacred Snow

After a couple of missed opportunities to return to Wesleyan Cemetery in the snow i finally made my way back there yesterday. Given the forecasted warming trend for the week it was probably a good thing as all this lovely white stuff will most likely be gone by Thursday.
(Click on any image for an enlarged gallery viewing)


Wesleyan Cemetery; Cincinnati; Northside; Tombstones; Graves
©David Sorcher 2014

I struggled with how to present these, color or Black & White. The stones did have some lovely subtle colors in them, but in the end i went for the B&W treatment, mostly because with all the snow it gave the over all image a stronger continuity. 

Wesleyan Cemetery; Cincinnati; Northside; Tombstones; Graves
©David Sorcher 2014

Mother Nature and Father Time own all things material. Gravestones well over 100 years old are slowly swallowed by trees that were mere saplings when the stones were first laid. 

Wesleyan Cemetery; Cincinnati; Northside; Tombstones; Graves
©David Sorcher 2014

An unusual mirrored marker reflects the cemetery behind it. 

Wesleyan Cemetery; Cincinnati; Northside; Tombstones; Graves
©David Sorcher 2014

One of the things i have always found so interesting about old cemeteries is the irony of fading tombstones. Markers left behind declaring that yes, we once lived, we once existed, are slowly wiped clean of names and dates by wind and rain, lichen and time. There is a certain bittersweetness to this secondary loss of the lost that borders on the poetic. 

Wesleyan Cemetery; Cincinnati; Northside; Tombstones; Graves
©David Sorcher 2014

Wesleyan was actually founded in 1843, but some bodies, including whole families, were moved there from certain over-crowded Downtown cemeteries after the fact, so dates can be found on some gravestones that actually pre-date the founding.  

Wesleyan Cemetery; Cincinnati; Northside; Tombstones; Graves
©David Sorcher 2014

Angel or goddess? The wings would suggest the first, but the bird at her feet, which looks very owl-like to me, could imply a connection to Athena. Perhaps her secret is hidden in her lost details. 




7 comments:

  1. Lovely. I need to visit this cemetery someday. My great grandmother is buried there but I have no clue of where she would be in there. If you ever run across a stone with the first name of Mingarbret, that's what I'm looking for.

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  2. Thanks Echoamy, maybe this site can help you.
    http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&GSsr=1&GSvcid=391566&CRid=44017&pt=Wesleyan%20Cemetery&

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  3. Thanks David, I've exhausted all indexes I could find including findagrave. Now all I can depend on is dumb luck or that billion graves app that is out there.

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  4. Just a thought…it may have had a different spelling back then or may have been entered incorrectly into the records. Not sure how that helps, but it might be the reason you are having trouble finding it. :-)

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  5. To view PDFs with pictures and short descriptions on Wesleyan Cemetery earlier history (examples: Civil War, Underground Railroad, Revolutionary War among others) visit the Northside website below
    http://www.northside.net/History/wesleyan.shtml

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  6. I tend to like things with stark contrast. Which is why I think I'm liking this series the best. The bright soft snow contrasting with the dark sharp tree trunks AND how that modern mirrored sharp edged marker contrasts SO distinctly with the aged time weathered softened edged old markers. For me there wasn't a single picture here that could have achieved the same effect as the overall series.

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