Old City Cemetery

Hi Ladies!

Today I wanted to start a little segment that is near and dear to me, called Historical Thursdays.

I'm such a lover of history.. I even got a degree in it. Two to be exact, one in history and one in anthropology.

Nerd. I know. Plus I work at a museum. Oh my! 

I've always been completely infatuated with the past and the people who lived during different time periods.

These next pictures are from a local cemetery in town, called Old City Cemetery.

Not very imaginative, I know, but the tombstones and statues there are beautiful!

The cemetery has been around since the cities founding, the 1850s.

It's so awesome to think that people were walking in the same place I was over 150 years ago!

              

There are soldiers from the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, and even the Texas Revolution.

There's children as well as adults buried there.

They died from all types of ailments including yellow fever, gunfights, cholera, and of course

victims of war.

I live on a border town with Mexico. At the very tip of Texas.

This is important because it is very influenced by Mexican culture. It once also had German, Spanish, and French people who lived here, as well as contributed to the city as a whole.

Now it is a very heavily Mexican cultural city.

The flowers they put on the graves show some of the burial practices for those of Mexican decent.

I'm sure some of you know at least a little bit about Day of the Dead. 

It's imagery is amazing and it's practices are very old.

People would traditionally, which some still uphold, spend the whole day at a cemetery with the lost loved ones. They leave offerings and adorn their graves.

Even though some of these graves are taken care of most are not upheld. Evident by the picture of the knocked over cross.

Sad really, there's so many awesome gravestones, crypts, obelisks, and statues that are completely decrepit.

This is an opposite example of upkeep. The family obviously comes and maintains this grave.

These are very few and far between from the norm at the cemetery.

There is no complete record as to how many people are buried here because not every burial was recorded.

The records also get skewed due to family lots being broken up and sold into parts.

The tombstones don't always list everyone who was buried there either.

People buried their loved ones and didn't record it anywhere on the markers on the tombs.

That information is long gone.

Brings an air of mystery to the cemetery. Which I think is pretty neat!

Beautiful right?

Hope you enjoyed my mini tour.

With all my love,

Pati