It's been a while since I've written a post here because I've been focusing on researching and writing the history of Grand View Memorial Park here in nearby Glendale, Calif.
Another of my cemetery-related interests in collecting vintage photographs of people posed at grave sites. I find these photos endlessly fascinating.
I'm curious about the circumstances under which the photos were shot and how they ended up for sale in re-sale shops or online. I'm also curious about the stories of the people in the pictures and have a hunch that many of them will make for interesting stories to tell here.
One photo that I'm working on now is (presumably) Bonnie Fern Anderson and her husband Nial John posing on their own headstone.
So far I've learned that they lived in North Judson, Indiana, and that they passed away in the 1970s. I have no idea which cemetery this photo was taken in or anything much else about them.
This is where genealogy sites such as Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, and local libraries and historical societies come in. I'm in the process of searching on the websites and reaching out to local organizations in hopes of finding the answers I seek.
I also hope that historians I speak with will be just as excited about the project as I am.
Another resource I use is Findagrave.com, where some of the headstones I'm researching are already listed and include modern photos of the markers. See my growing virtual cemetery of results here.
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