My hometown's cemeteries

Some nice old headstones

Here, one backside in Hebrew, the other in German

Well, that's it. It might be that I add some more photos here but for now ... you'll just get a bonus program: a few pics from around a village church, I took on my way back.

Stay tuned :wink:

Wow, I find the stone outstanding. The workmanship is great! and the grounds are so natural as compared to our cemeteries in US (ours look more like subdivisions for the dead) I like a little bit of "eye candy" in a cemetery, it takes the broedom out of being dead.

PS, the Hinteler Stone is made of a rock that may be a metatrachyte. It has great big reddish feldspars crystals and a black "flowing" base rock mix. If the crystals are actually visible(couldnt tell because the pixels are a bit large) then its a trachyte metaporphyry. That stuff hadda come from the Rhinegraben area.

I had a student do a weathering study on tombstones in our county and air basin. She did a correlation of the tombstone ages and the solution product of the rains and lichens.

I saw one tombstone that looked like a black slate. was that so?

The tree of life figure on the couples(air crash victims) tombstone is a common New England figure, except up there, they will add a little skull in the center as a reminder that you must first die before enjoying Paradise.

The entrance to that church is through a door house - actually, I didn't want to photograph that, but when I noticed the cat ... :wink:

It's really only a village, but with a famous organ in the church and .... the churchyard had been the burial place for some local nobility between 1500 and 1650

Besides those two plates, there are only a couple of older tombs from some former priests left on that chucrhyard now - the village got a new cmemetery as well

I see that they save the old cobblestones also.

PS WAlter, what was the temperature today? it looked like about 0 (C)

Just outside the churchyard - this fine big house, the former vicarage and rectorate school, now used as a seminar house for the "Westphalian Catholic Rural Youth"

Temperature was about 9°C in my hometown, 5°C at the last place (it's a bit higher and on top of a promontry).

This interesting part above the door is the final of this thread (at least for the ohotos and for now)

checking out Walter's thread......

Well, now that I've had a chance to look at all the pages, I'm quite impressed. How different the headstones, plantings, and the general look of the graveyard is, as compared to shewolf's one.

Do you also have a problem with vandalism there, stones getting damaged on purpose? I didn't see anything other than normal wear, so far.

Not in my native town. (I noticed that you can have free access to the Jewish cemetery: the front door is always locked ["Keys at the town council"), but there's no fence/hedge on one side).

It happens sometimes, though, around here. But very, very, very seldom.

This autumn, a couple of bushes and trees were removed behind the tomb of my granduncle/-aunt(s)* and aunt.

The view from the front:



When my aunt (mother's cousin) was born, her mother died.

Not only that granduncle married some years later a younger sister of his late wife, the family just turned the gravestone (with only the name of the first grandaunt on it) when he died and wrote "Familie" (family) on it ...

You certainly notice the "red lanterns" - on All Saints Day (November 1) it's a tradition (in Catholic parts of the country) to light candles on the tombes and lay down special floral decorations ... like here at my father's tomb or as to be seen o the other photos