In December, I was in the Prospect Hill Cemetery visiting as I am wont to do. I stopped by the Mitchell family plot for a visit and a check.
As I stood behind the plot, I realized that the shadow of the “new fencing” (we restored it in 2018, with Community Preservation Act funding, from a photographic image) may basically be the shadow that was cast on the stones in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The fence is on the original stone piers. It is interesting how the shadow “connects” the back stones – the break only being where there are no stones. Those stones belong to Andrew Mitchell (Maria’s oldest brother and the eldest Mitchell sibling), their aunt (whom Maria is named for and who was Lydia Coleman Mitchell’s sister) Maria Coleman, and Sally Mitchell Barney (the Mitchell’s second child and thus, Maria’s oldest sister). I like thinking about this “connectedness.”
I continued my ambling through the stones, visiting other Mitchell family members, checking on stones that I have cleaned, and visiting those who have left us, many of them friends and mentors. It gets a bit sad but then I know they are still with me. Each one of them gave me something from themselves to make me who I am today. And for that, I am always grateful.
I encourage you to walk Prospect Hill and learn and look. It’s a beautiful site with so many interesting stone monuments. Some see cemeteries as upsetting or scary or maudlin. They are not – they are quiet, peaceful, and beautiful places that serve as part of our history and our being.
JNLF
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