The foxes (see entries below) were not in evidence last night; tonight I got a brief glimpse of the mother trotting over the hill on the other side of the road from the den. The cemetery has been busy and crowded the past two days with, no doubt, guns going off during the ceremony this morning, and it's suffocatingly hot, so presumably the fox kits are lying low and cool.
The first image above is of one of my newest favorites. I like it for the wrong reason: the deterioration of the stone is strangely moving in a cemetery where most of the work retains its original exquisite quality. The woman memorialized died at 27; her three-year-old child, who died four years earlier, is buried in the same plot. In front of the statue lie her husband and, apparently, his second wife. I wonder if his second try at matrimony worked out more happily than his first.
The second image reads "Our Dolly ~ Mildred." Mildred was one of 175 people, all but three of them children, who perished in an elementary school fire in 1908. Another marker nearby honors 19 of the children who could not be identified after the fire. Mildred was eight years old. People still bring her flowers.
The foxes inhabit a place of such beauty and such sadness.
5 comments:
I tried to post a minute ago and it doesn't seem to have gone through, so hopefully I'm not double-posting.
Just wanted to say that I love reading about the foxes. And cemeteries are fascinating--my husband is into genealogy research, so we've spent quite a few weekends exploring all kinds of old cemeteries. As the previous commenter said, there are so many stories there, and so much history to consider.
The fox kits are wonderfully cute. I'm glad you got back to that site with your camera.
I also love cemetaries. If you are ever in Rochester again -- I'll take you to the beautiful one here where Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, and many other notables are buried.
What a treat that fox family has been for you! Thanks for the pictures...they are wonderful. If I lived in the city (to me, where you live IS the city), I would do exactly as you do...seek out the quiet, natural places and thrill at their secrets.
I love cemetaries; so do my kids because their childcare would take them there on hot sunny days for some shade and drawing. It's so wonderful that people still take flowers to the little girl lost in the fire. very touching.
I love cemetaries; so do my kids because their childcare would take them there on hot sunny days for some shade and drawing. It's so wonderful that people still take flowers to the little girl lost in the fire. very touching.
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