Cemetery Stories: Suggested Pre and Post Visit Materials

Preparation Suggestions for Cemetery Stories Program

If you have sufficient chaperones, divide the students into smaller groups and assign an adult to work with each one.

Do prepare the class. Discuss possible fears or anxieties. Be aware of any recent deaths in students' families.
Do set very clear guidelines for appropriate behavior and hold students to this conduct: no running, no wandering off without an adult, no leaning on or pushing stones, fences or monuments. Remind students that the cemetery is a place of respect for the dead.
Don’t allow students to sit or lean against monuments. Many are unpegged, unstable and extremely dangerous if toppled!
Do remind students to dress appropriately. In cold weather, wear layered clothing, long pants, socks or tights, sturdy shoes, etc. Sneakers or boots are best, as grass, moisture and uneven ground may make walking difficult in the cemetery.
Do leave the cemetery in a better condition than you found it.
If the weather is dry enough we will do some gravestone rubbings in groups. We will not have time for students to do individual rubbings.
Please review the handout "Gravestone Rubbing for Beginners". [Available as a 24k pdf file. Acrobat Reader is required to view this file and is available for free. To download, click on Get Acrobat Reader, select your language and platform (Mac or Windows) and then download the Reader.] You may wish to have the students practice on some articles in the classroom or school, such as plaques, stone or brick walls, signs, etc.
The Historical Society will supply all materials for rubbings at the cemetery.

If the weather is too poor to take your class to the cemetery, please call the Society at 789-5151 and we will try to reschedule, although I cannot guarantee that we will be able to.

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Pre Visit Activities

Activity 1: What is a Cemetery?

Before visiting the cemetery, it is a good idea to discuss with the children what a cemetery is and why you are visiting it. Some questions to discuss are:

What is a cemetery?
What does a cemetery make you think of?
Has anyone ever been to a cemetery? What for?
Can anyone name a cemetery that they have visited or heard of before?
What do cemeteries look like?

Activity 2: Are All Cemeteries the Same?

Examine the pictures of different burial places. How are they the same? How are they different? Why?

Click on the image to see a larger version of the photograph.

	Cemetery, Croton on Hudson, New York: Many cemeteries in the United States look like this. This is what most Americans think of when they think of a cemetery. Does it look like cemeteries you have seen?

	St. Louis Cemetery, New Orleans, Louisiana: Not all cemeteries in the U.S. are alike. Because the ground is too wet and swampy to bury people, in New Orleans most cemeteries have mausoleums for interring the dead above ground.

	Arlington National Cemetery, Washington, D.C.: notice national symbol of the flag, all stones are the same, regular rows of stones, classical style architecture like government buildings—all clues that this is a military/government burial ground.

	Arlington Headstone: simple, straightforward with only the Star of David to indicate religion.

	Viet Minh Cemetery, Vietnam: also a military cemetery, but very different. Names of the dead are on stones on the ground, not on the standing stones. Mark on stones is the symbol of the Communist military, no religious symbols.

	Moulin Neuf, France: This cemetery also has mausoleums, but not necessarily for the same reason as in St. Louis. Why else might people inter their dead in a mausoleum? Can you tell what religion the people buried in this cemetery were?

	Jewish cemetery, Prague, Czech Republic: stones are crowded together because in the past Jewish people were forced to live and be buried in one part of the city (ghetto). When the cemetery became crowded, soil was added and new graves were dug on top of old ones. This crowded the tombstones closer together (cemetery used from 1439-1787).

	Muslim Cemetery, India: Are there clues to tell you where it is? Does it look like the United States? Do the memorials help reveal who built them?

	Chinese Cemetery, Yokohama, Japan: Where do you think this is? Why is it so different? This is a Chinese cemetery in Japan. Many Chinese people believe that it is important to build houses or tombs for the dead to live in after death. To remember their loved ones and to keep their spirits happy, family members visit the tombs in the spring to clean them and leave offerings of incense and paper money. Notice the urns and lamps for burning the offerings.

19th Century Photographs of Washington Street Cemetery

These are photographs from the Geneva Historical Society collection. They were taken by James G. Vail in the 1870s and 1880s.

Activity 3: What is a Symbol or an Icon?

Using examples from the previous activity, discuss what a symbol is. The American Flag is also a good starting point. You may wish to review "Symbolism in The Carvings on Old Gravestones," [16.7k pdf file] which lists the symbols found in American cemeteries in the 1700s and 1800s, and discuss what some look like, so that students will have an easier time recognizing them on the trip.

Are these symbols the same as or different from those found in cemeteries in other cultures? Why? Good examples to discuss from the previous activity are the Star of David, the Christian Cross, the Vietnamese star. Symbols common to 19^th century cemeteries are the weeping willow, crosses, angels, birds, lambs, broken branches or columns, garlands, drapery, and the anchor.

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Post Visit Activities

Activity 1: Write An Epitaph

Discuss the epitaphs students saw on the field trip. Have students write epitaphs of their own. These could be epitaphs for historic figures, for themselves, celebrities, teachers, or even cartoon characters. Then have the students create and design paper headstones on which to write their epitaph. Hang them in the classroom or the hallway to create your own "cemetery".

For additional examples of epitaphs visit these sites:
http://www.alsirat.com/epitaphs/
http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/epitfs.htm

Activity 2: Research Geneva Residents

Using material learned on the field trip and resources available at the Historical Society and the library (census reports, newspaper obituaries, local history books) have each student research a "resident" at the cemetery and report on their findings.

Activity 3: Write a Short Story or Obituary

Have students write a short story or obituary about one of the cemetery residents they "met" on their trip. Depending on how much research you want to incorporate, this could be entirely factual, or completely made up based on what students learned about life in Geneva in the 1800s.

Activity 4: Research the Funerary Customs of Different Cultures

Research some of the burial traditions and rituals of different cultures (e.g., Native American, Haitian, and Indian) and of different religions (e.g., Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Daoism).

For more information on using these activities or to receive hard copies of the documents, please call Anne Dealy at 315-789-5151.

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