I have remarked before about my ‘enjoyment’ of walking around older ‘pioneer’ cemeteries. So many questions arise as I study the markers of graves. The obvious questions of why’s, how’s, what’s are usually paired with the who and when on the marker.
However, sometimes the marker is more challenging of the mind. The Who and When are not there. Below, the marker at Fredericksburg National Cemetery provides a very telling number ’11’…the number of unidentified soldiers’ remains buried beneath the marker.
Below, I found this marker for ’45’ next to a tree in a back corner of a pioneer cemetery. Again, the who and when are missing and the how, why, what remain equally missing. I find these types of markers provocative of emotions. Thank goodness most of us will not go unknown, unidentified, alone in the end. For those that do, perhaps someone will stand, looking down upon them and wonder.
