[AT] funny..

[John Hall]

Don't know if you guys are trying to be morbid  with all this cemetery talk 
or just trying to get in the season with Halloween next week, but I'll go 
with the flow. How common was/is it in your neck of the woods to have 
cemeteries on the farm? We used to have 2 farms leased that had cemeteries 
on them. One had a large cemetery on it while there were two smaller 
cemeterys on the other.

 The large cemetry was smack in the middle of a 50 acre field (BIG field for 
my area). It had a stone wall around it. If I remember correctly it had 
filled up on the inside and they had started to bury folks on the outside of 
the wall. Never got off the tractor to check any dates though. We farmed 
practically within a few feet of the cemetery. It was overgrown with trees 
although none of them were huge.

The other farm actually had 3 gravesites come to think about it. One was in 
a field, one was in the woods (tombstones dating to the 50's at this site) 
and another gravesite was discovered when that farm began growing its 
present crop (houses). Guy was clearing a lot in the woods and saw something 
that looked like bone. Got off and checked and he noticed a row of mounds. 
Long story short they had to hire someone to come in and  move that 
gravesite. Speculation was that is may have been an old slave cemetery. 
Couldn't find any markers except one piece of stone that looked like it had 
a date chiseled in it but it wasn't very legible.

John

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Francis Robinson" <robinson at svs.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 28, 2006 12:16 AM
Subject: RE: [AT] funny..


> -----Original Message-----
>
> I found a new "need" for a butt buggy today.  I'm tramping through
> some pretty rough terrain in cemeteries in the upper Ohio valley,
> and it sure would be nice to have my Jim Dandy (Economy) tractor
> with me equipped with the dual transmissions and 12.25:1
> differential to cruise around looking for tombstone inscriptions
> (genealogy work).  With the sunken graves (no vaults), a super-slow
> tractor would be a tremendous help.
>
> Larry
>
>
> Hi Larry:
>
> As it happens I also was out of state tramping cemeteries for the last
> couple of days. I didn't really have the time but the planets lined up or
> something and an opportunity presented its self.  It would have taken a
> good-sized dozer to have gotten through one that I was in this morning...
> Really over-grown...   ;-)    Really sad how little respect people have 
> for
> those former living breathing souls that came before us and gave us the 
> best
> of what we have today. I found out yesterday that I need to return to one
> cemetery soon to replace 5 vandalized stones of family members. They were
> damaged since I was there last maybe 4 years ago. They are small stones 
> but
> it is going to be a bit expensive and it is a 5-hour drive one way.  On a
> brighter note, three small cemeteries that I had not been in before were 
> in
> nice shape and very well kept.
> We did once use a tractor in a cemetery. When I was a teen my local 4-H
> club took on the care of a small abandoned cemetery only a quarter mile 
> from
> the farm. It had so many deeply sunken graves that the club had a big load
> of fill dirt brought in and then I took the John Deere 40C crawler in and
> carefully leveled the whole thing. The club then reseeded it and held the
> mowing contract with the TWP for many years. That was in the 1950s and the
> club got $50 a year for maintaining it. The club is now gone but the TWP
> still pays someone to mow it. It still looks quite nice. I'll bet the TWP
> has to pay a lot more than $50 a year now.   ;-)
>
> --
> "farmer"
>
> The brave may not live forever but the easily frightened may never live at
> all.
>
> Francis Robinson
> Central Indiana, USA
> robinson at svs.net
>
>