Thread: Cemetery Visit

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While I was in Maryland on business, I stopped into the Naval Air Station in Patuxent River. They have a cemetery that was refurbished in 2007-2008 by Grave Concerns. The Navy had some very superstitious pilots before WWII and the cemetery on the station was in the flight path to one of the runways. The Navy documented all of the graves and tombstones, then removed the tombstones from the graves, laid them flat and buried under several tons of topsoil covering the graves and markers so as to not fly over a cemetery. The company Grave Concerns uncovered and reset the entire cemetery in 2007. The soil was so neutral in composition that most of the stones appear to be new! Pics in my profile Halloween Forum - JohnnyAppleseed's Album: Patuxent River Naval Air Station Cemetery Couple of pics from the album:

Wow, thanks for sharing. I'm sure you might have gathered some ideas for creating your own, or certainly given someone else here some inspiration!

Ohhh, thanks JA.... I just love seeing new pictures of cemeteries that I probably wont ever get to visit - such good inspiration!

great pics & story! thanx for sharing

Very cool. Thank you for sharing your pics, JohnnyAppleseed

Awsome. Saw some that I want to do.

Odd that those superstitious pilots thought that covering the existing cemetery with soil would somehow make its contents no longer there.

Wow, interesting story and nice pics!

Meeps

Thats a great story, Johnny.
Burying the stones under several tons of neutral ph earth has kept them in much better condition than if they had been exposed to the elements for the last 70 years or so.

Great photo's too!

I think those tombstones also look as good as they do in part to being restored. We have a wonderful Victorian era graveyard here in Nashville. The nashville city cemetery. They have been restoring it recently. The tombstones come out looking brand new. I know it's neccesary but I love the old patina and moss so much more. The most beautiful graveyard IMO that I have ever seen is Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, KY. It is beautiful. All of the tombstones are like works of art. It has huge tombs that look like little cathedrals. Some of the tombs you can look into it is so creepy inside a real tomb. There was one that had all the members of the family in it. But one of the drawers? was empty. But it had a name on it. The door of it was open but there wasn't a coffin in it. Though it looked like it had been. That cemetery is so huge that we actually got lost and couldn't find our car. It's something like 300 acres. It is so old and they don't allow anyone to put flowers on the graves so no tacky flowers.

I recommend anyone going to Louisville to go there and spend the day. And at night go to Waverly Hills Sanatorium. That was my mini vacation last year. It was my favorite. We went to WHS at midnight. That place is so creepy I wanted to cry when I had to leave. We walked down the body shute and when we came out in the middle of nowhere it was so cool. The only people who went all the way down was me my husband my 2 kids and 2 other young boys. We had a blast. Plus that place is very secluded. I will be going back to spend the night.