Today's mystery: the marbles

[pjthompson]

Those of you who have been reading this blog for awhile may remember this story, but as it's mysterious and happened to me, I thought it worth posting again.

In June of 2005 I decided to visit Woodlawn Cemetery on 14th and Pico in Santa Monica, California. Not a huge cemetery, surrounded by urban blight on three of its four sides and a junior college on the fourth, but a beautiful place inside the grounds. A number of old, gnarled, and interesting trees are scattered throughout the graveyard, and since it was established in the nineteenth century it has a wide range of dates on the headstones.

I've liked walking through cemeteries since I was quite young (morbid child that I am), and I'd been to Woodlawn often back in the day. I also used it in one of my novels (Shivery Bones), dredged up from memory. I decided to return to see if my memory had gotten things right, and also to take some pictures with my (then) new camera. Because the sun was so bright, the sky so blue, the trees so plentiful, I got lots of shadow-and-light shots. The headstones held many poignant stories, too—heartbreak and mysteries, brief lives, some nearly a century old. I doubt anyone knows the story behind the words on those stones anymore, probably not even the folks who keep the cemetery records.

One story that has always intrigued me centers around two small markers over by the western fence:



No dates, no other graves nearby, just these two little headstones. My imagination has always roamed a great deal over what story might lie behind the starkness of these two little markers.

The next night as I went through the pictures, I discovered another little mystery. I like to view all the pictures in super blow up, quadrant by quadrant. Partly that's because sometimes a piece of a photo will be more interesting than the entire shot; partly because I like to look for anomalies. My favorite shot of the set was a shadow and light picture of a child's grave. And that was the beginning of the mystery:





In super enlargement, I noticed a marble beside this grave, just the other side of the slice of diagonal shadow in the upper right of the picture. Here's the close up:



It didn't strike me as all that odd until later when I also did a close up of each of those two tiny graves over by the fence:





When I did the super enlargement of the Brother headstone, I found another marble—not as easy to spot because it was pushed down into the mud:



I wondered if someone had gone through the graveyard leaving marbles for all the little kids. I didn't see one near the Baby headstone, but I thought it might have been hidden by some of the leaves. I didn't move any leaves at the time because I wanted my pictures of the markers to portray them as I found them—and I certainly wasn't looking for marbles.

Then, as I reviewed the original post before posting it back in 2008, I spotted the third marble for the first time, the one beside the Baby gravestone. I guess whoever did this didn't want anyone to feel left out:

Comments

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

Cool! I love this. So intriguing, compelling.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It's always stuck with me.

[lizziebelle.livejournal.com]

Such a bittersweet mystery.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

I know!

[sarah-prineas.livejournal.com]

Strange. I wonder how long they'd been there.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

They looked old even when I was a kid...and that's awhile ago. But the grass is always kept off them. I remember that, too, from back in the day. I don't know if it's groundskeepers (they're very good at Woodlawn) or family.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

Oh wait, you mean the marbles. Who can say? I've thought often I should go back and see if they're still there.

[sarah-prineas.livejournal.com]

:) Yup, I meant the marbles. It's hard to imagine they'd last being mowed over and rained on, and leaf-raked...

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I think the marbles must have been fairly recent.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

So poignant. "Brother" and "Baby" are such touching, sad markers.

I wonder if marbles mean anything--maybe they're marbles for playing with, as you suggest, or maybe they're like solid tears, or maybe they're like windows to the soul, or who knows what?

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

I've liked to think they were for playing with, but they could just as easily be solid tears or soul prisms. Who can tell what the iconography of the gifter was?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of having them play with them too--it's a hopeful image.

[darkspires.livejournal.com]

I think the appearence of the marbles will confirm the age. Old marbles tended to be either entirely colored or, if they were clear, had little bubbles in them. I don't know what date the paper twist got in the center of the modern marbles, but it was probably just pre war.

Fascinating. I wonder why the kids aren't named? It must be in the records somewhere. Unless they were the unidentified victims of a catastrophe and the boy was found holding the baby? Was there some nasty happening on December 22nd 1918?

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

I think the marbles are pretty recent. The date of December 22, 1918 applies to another grave. There was no date whatsoever on Brother and Baby. The unidentified victims theory could be true.

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

I love this mystery...

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

Me, too. I think about it and ponder it a lot.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I remember this!

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

It's hard to forget, at least for me. :-)

[haworth-attard.livejournal.com]

My mom and dad are buried in Siloam cemetery in London, Ontario, and just as you come into the cemetery there is a little gravestone from the 1800's that says LauraLuella. It's all by itself - a child, so when I put flowers on my Mom and Dad's grave, I always take a blossom to the little gravestone.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

Glad you do. Those lost little child gravestones are so moving.

[geniusofevil.livejournal.com]

wow, so many story ideas ...

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

I know!

[helios137.livejournal.com]

"Archaeologists have found small round pebbles and white marbles in caves dating back to the Paleolithic age, and little stone pillars forming arches and stone balls in an Egyptian child's grave dating back to 4000 B.C."

Read more: Children's Marble Games | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/list_6716651_children_s-marble-games.html#ixzz1BB4RD7LS

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

That's lovely. Games for the children to play in the afterlife.