It's easy to get a little melancholy when wandering around a graveyard, especially when one sees the grave markers of young children. In an old cemetery like Ross Bay there are many such graves, testament to how fragile life was for the young a century ago. Diseases we no longer worry about such as diptheria and scarlet fever routinely killed children before vaccination became widespread. But some balance is provided by the large number of graves belonging to people who lived long full lives. Ross Bay Cemetery currently holds about 28,000 graves so it is not surprising that there are a few centenarians. Above are two I noticed, Natalia Buchan who died at 100 years of age, and Elizabeth Whitby, who lived to be 105 years old.
4 comments:
Wow. Ms. Whitby lived to see so much progress....even the early days of the internet. Amazing!
I went to an old cemetery in Mariposa, CA, the heart of gold country, and it was really sad to see the same year of death on whole families' stones. You knew it had to be some disease that swept through town.
When you've lived that long, you've pretty much beaten every disease there is.
We have several small cemeteries around here that are from years gone by. I do like to wander them and read and wonder about the people. Yes it is so sad to see the small children graves. And of the oldsters what a different life they led and to see so many changes in their world.
MB
Nice shot.
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