Pioneer Cemeteries

My stepdaughter from Oregon came and visited us for her father's birthday. One of the favorite things we like to do is to look around old/pioneer cemeteries located around our small town. The above photo is a sign describing where the founder, Gamaliel Wilder, was buried along with other veterans of the civil war.



Pictured above is the newer gravestone of the town's founder that the Historical Society put up because the original gravestone is now hardly visible.



We noticed that most of them died young, like 40's, 5o's, 60's, and a lot of children died after only a few days or months. That was why when we saw the gravestone pictured above, we were amazed that this guy lived to be 96 years old!!! We did the math, and that meant he was born in 1720! Click to enlarge and read the inscription, it is somewhat funny in a way. :) Try to notice the engraving too, crisp and sharp, it takes a lot of skills to do this by hand.

It is fascinating to realize how old this cemetery is... 1801! There are a lot of gravestones lying around that had fallen to the ground and are not even legible anymore. It is nice to know that the Historical Society is trying to save this cemetery. They cleared the bushes/trees that were crowding the place and put up a sign that says, "Founder's Cemetery" by the highway. There was one cemetery that we visited where it has overgrown trees and bushes and if one is not looking, nobody would even know that there is a cemetery somewhere in there... sad.

Debris Shelter

Pictured above is the interior of my daughter's school project on Outdoor Living Skills subject. She's supposed to build a shelter made of branches, and leaves. She built it on our property close to our house for safety. There has been a bear sighting in our area and I was worried that she might have an unwelcome "visitor" during the night.


This is the back view of her shelter. As you can see it was not really that big ... it looks like a pile of leaves ready to be burned. lol She told me that some of her classmates picked fly fishing as a project and they have to learn how to tie a hook and go catch a fish. Others chose how to build a fire from sticks with no matches. Whatever project each student picked, they have to do the research on how to accomplish them.


The front side, she also built a fire and roasted hot dogs with her brother. Lucky me, I didn't have to make dinner that night! :)


And here she is sleeping soundly. She's supposed to sleep in it for three nights and she has to document her project with pictures. Her brother went out around 11pm and took several of them. Nite, nite, missy ... don't let the bed bug bite!