Day 18

One of my interests for many years has been cemeteries. This started the year I took undergraduate anthropology and was assigned to do some original research and draw some conclusions. I decided to survey the population in a small cemetery and expose some trends in the data. The idea was that I wasn’t to use any of my knowledge of history or any reference resources. The data had to support my conclusions, and they did. There are good memories of data collection days, with Rose doing cartwheels through the rows of stones while the sun shone. She probably doesn’t remember, but it was a very happy time for me. If I could have, I would have followed in anthropologist Margaret Mead’s footsteps full time, so this was a favorite assignment.

What did I conclude? There was a war in the 1860s that killed many native sons. There was also two bits of evidence regarding babies. Many babies (and some mother’s too) died soon after birth. The other bit was evidence that there had been an outbreak of some sort of disease that took babies, mothers, and older children for a period of several months. Not sure why the men seemed not to have succumbed. Maybe they all died in the war? It’s been a while since I read my paper so I might have learned more, but these are the things I remember most.

Tomorrow I visit at least 2 cemeteries.

Louisville KY