Decoration Day

 Wooster Cemetery, Ohio. 1895 monument.

For thousands of years soldiers' graves were decorated with flowers. The biggest, and bloodiest event in American history was the war waged on America by Americans from 1861 to 1865. There were hundreds of thousands of war dead. In 1868 a national convergence was set for the 30th of May, a time when many flowers were in bloom. Grand Army of the Republic was a fraternal organisation of Union war veterans. General John Logan was the leader of the organisation in 1868, and called for a national commemoration. Cities and states in the North accepted. The southern states had other individual dates for the Confederates.

Gradually, the name 'Memorial Day' gained greater usage. Starting in 1971, with passage of Monday holidays, the holiday was transferred to the last Monday in May, and officially called Memorial Day.

cardboard and spray paint repair

walking through Lake View

 

Lake View Cemetery is very proud of Daffodil Hill. A gift of six thousand bulbs initially from William Weir in 1941, and now well over one hundred thousand, and maybe fifty, or sixty thousand more bedded. When the yellow blanket opens up the joyful colour is enveloping.

King Alfred, and Narcissus Carlton mostly

and a couple of others

Why, yes it is.

First liquor bottle i've seen here.

before the Spanish Influenza

a casualty of the American Expeditionary Force

WOW provided, for a tome, gravestones with the insurance.

There is no Dana, there is only ...

 

Schumacher

 

Schumacher's bronze memorial has been cleaned. Bronze becomes verdigris in color. Green Lawn has increased its maintenance.

Frederick W. Schumacher was born in Copenhagen in 1863. He died in 1963, and i read he is buried in another Greenlawn Cemetery, a Lutheran one in Mahoning County. Schumacher made money in mining in Ontario. A good portion of the original collection of Columbus' art museum came from him.

Three sides of this bronze has pastoral scenes from ancient times. Priessman, Bauer & Company, Munich 1930s.

Downtown Columbus was Wolf Ridge

Mike Major. "Departed Denizens".  public ceremony 16 October 2020. Columbus.

The wolf is on top of a 16 ton granite rock. This monument is for the remains of former cemeteries that were built over for other projects.

 

a monument to an airedale

Renate Fackler. Muggs Thurber. unveiled August 28, 2021. Columbus.

Thurber's drawing of Muggs

This is a cenotaph. Muggs was buried by Thurber in a forgotten ditch in 1928.

James Thurber was a writer, humourist, and cartoonist. He lost an eye as a child, and his vision continued to deteriorate. He went to Ohio State, and was refused graduation. A mandatory ROTC class disqualified him on account of his eyesight. He was given a degree, thirty-four years posthumously.

 

He wrote an essay, “The Dog That Bit People”. It ends:

Muggs died quite suddenly one night. Mother wanted to bury him in the family lot under a marble stone with some such inscription as “Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest” but we persuaded her it was against the law. In the end we just put up a smooth board above his grave along a lonely road. On the board I wrote with an indelible pencil “Cave Canem.” Mother was quite pleased with the simple classic dignity of the old Latin epitaph.

All Saints/Día de los Muertos

First time, i remember to see a Cleveland grave so decorated.