Tombstone Tuesday - Webb Memorial Lawn

This past Sunday, July 5, 2009, my mother must have read my mind. The cemetery was calling us. This cemetery, Webb Memorial Lawn, is where my maternal grandparents, Mary Magdalene Pierce Hosch and Lucillous Hosch, are interned. When I went over to the hometown, this past weekend, I had meant to take my camera so that I could take a picture of my grandparents' headstone for Tombstone Tuesday, but I'm so glad that I didn't because this trip wasn't one of our usual trips. It was a remembrance of not just our ancestors but many friends, too, as mom and I decided to walk through the cemetery.

Mom reminisced about parents of some of her former students (mom was a teacher) and friends. It was almost like neither one of us had been there before as we commented on markers we hadn't remembered seeing. It had been awhile for both of us. I use to go there at least once a year to talk to my grandparents. Somehow the year never seemed quite right until I got them caught up on what was going on with me. These days visits seem to be more spur of the moment instead of planned.

I pray that this final resting place for so many doesn't meet the same fate as the cemetery my great-grandfather, Cornelius Pierce, is interned in. But I do worry because unless you know Webb Memorial Lawn is there, you don't know it's there. It's just outside the city limits of my hometown. There are no markers or signs that point you to it. And even when you arrive there, a stranger would have to search a bit for the name of the cemetery. For many years, it was the only cemetery that blacks could be buried in, but no new plots are being sold there. Everyone, both black and white, are now being buried in Cleveland Memorial Park Cemetery, which is in another part of the county. There are no tombstones at Cleveland Memorial, only the flat markers.

One day I will take a picture of my grandparents headstone but for now just know that they are through the trees, slightly to the left on the little hill / ridge in the background.

Till next time!