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Subject: Re: Need gravemarker pics from Most Holy Trinity Cemetery?
Date: 31 Aug 2004 11:43:48 -0600
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Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/RUB.2ACI/4182.4.1.1.1.1
Message Board Post:
Carol:
Don't want to beat a dead horse, but since you have been so nice, I thought I would add a few more comments.
According to my cousins, MHT was a real jungle before St. John's took it over and cleaned it up. Trees and brush covering all the graves and litter and junk was everywhere. The caretaker was in a barred and graffitied(sp?) gatehouse, and wouldn't even open the door to talk to one of my cousins who was a nun in habit. It's a different world now; clean, peaceful and a pleasure to visit, as long as you have 'company'. This is New York, after all, and there are a lot of nuts out there very willing to take advantage of anyone who appears vulnerable. Women run a double risk: robbery AND rape. All cemeteries are lonely places these days, when few people visit family graves and crime is so rampant. Even St. John's has warned me on two occasions about visiting in St. John's when I was accompanied by my niece. I had a personal experience there once ( was alone) when some strange man was peering at me from behind different tombstones. I beat it out of there fast! You don't !
want to be paranoid, but you need to use common sense when in a cemetery or other lonely place where help is not always readily available. Don't carry a purse, and while you are distracted taking photos, make sure someone else is watching what is going on around you. You need to be aware at all times...
When I went to MHT, I anticipated that I would find few tombstones left on the 40-odd family graves we intended to visit, so I brought along a shopping bag full of marigolds from my garden, and left one on each grave we visited.
TIP: Be sure you check the names on all the 'stones' in the vicinity of your graves and others you photograph. You may recognize some of the names. Families were often buried in the same cemetery, often quite close to each other. You may make a few 'bonus' finds you didn't expect.
Madeline
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