The mystery of the marbles

[pjthompson]

Those of you who have been reading this journal for a long time may remember this story. I recently posted a shortened and amended version to mourning_souls because I was way too excited to find a community that shares my love of photographing cemeteries. Who knew? There's apparently a community for every interest, no matter how disconcerting.

And the other interesting thing? In the process of posting, I added to the mystery by discovering something I hadn't noticed before. But I'll save that for the end of the post...

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I thought I'd share a small mystery I encountered in a local, urban cemetery.

Back in June of 2005, I wound up at Woodlawn Cemetery up on 14th and Pico in Santa Monica, California. I hadn't been there in while, but I used to like to walk through the place. Not a huge cemetery, surrounded by urban blight on three of its four sides and a junior college on the fourth. But it's a beautiful place, lots of old and gnarled and interesting trees, and since it was established in 1847 it has a wide range of dates for the headstones.

Because the sun was so bright, the sky so blue, and the trees so plentiful, I got lots of shadow and light shots. Lots of poignant stories in the headstones, too. Mysteries that are nearly a century old. I doubt anyone knows the story behind them anymore, probably not even the folks that keep the cemetery records.

The next night when I was going 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 was a shadow and light shot of a child's grave. And that was the beginning of the mystery:






In super enlargement, I noticed there was 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 really strike me as all that odd until a little later. I was far more intrigued by two tiny graves over by the fence:



No dates, no other graves nearby, just these two little headstones. My imagination roamed a lot over that one.

I also did a close up of each headstone:





When I was doing the super enlargement of the Brother headstone, I found another marble. This one wasn't as easy to spot because it was pushed down into the mud:



Like I said, a small mystery, but I wondered if someone was going through the cemetery and leaving marbles for all the little kids. I didn't see one near the Baby headstone, but it was much more covered in leaves so it could have been hidden. I didn't move any leaves when I took pictures because I wanted them to be as I found them. But I still wonder about those marbles, who might have been leaving them.

ETA: Just now, as I reviewed this post, I spotted the third marble for the first time, the one for the Baby gravestone. That's weird (or I am)!



ETA Part Deux: I iz dumb. 1847 is the address of the cemetery, not the year it was founded!

Comments

[hominysnark.livejournal.com]

That is FREAKIN' cool!

[pjthompson]

Thanks! I'm thinking I should go back for a follow up, but then again...

[lizziebelle.livejournal.com]

Neat!

There are several cemetery groups on Flickr. This one is pretty good: http://www.flickr.com/groups/gtc/pool/

[pjthompson]

Ohmygoodgollymissmolly! I need about ten more hours in the day. ;-)

And thanks.

[inkbabies.livejournal.com]

how cool!!!!!

[pjthompson]

Thank you!

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's neat!

[pjthompson]

Thanks--I thought so, too. (Like your mysterious empty journal.)

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Wow!

[pjthompson]

:-)

[kimberlychapman.livejournal.com]

Cemeteries, especially old ones, are cool. And when I get accused of being morbid for saying that I like to reply that hey, at least someone is paying attention to those long dead folks.

It's actually a fairly modern concept that cemeteries are creepy. In the 1800s, they were parks were families had weekend picnics. I had a prof who was severely into studying the history of park-cemeteries.

Never heard of the marble thing before. It's very cool. Sounds like the start of a novel...someone notices the marbles and then unravels a huge mystery, which may or may not contain paranormal elements.

[kimberlychapman.livejournal.com]

And actually, do you mind if I link to this entry in my LJ to send interested folks over to see your piccies? Because this is really cool. :)

[pjthompson]

Sure, go ahead. Thanks.

[pjthompson]

I used to work across the street (for several years) from the huge Catholic cemetery at the San Fernando Mission. Every holiday families and on birthdays families would come out and decorate the graves and leave stuff for the dead. They still do similar things around the world. El Dia de los Muertes, for instance.

Sounds like the start of a novel...someone notices the marbles and then unravels a huge mystery, which may or may not contain paranormal elements.

Indeed it does. Maybe one of my writer acquaintances will write it. :-)

[cathemery.livejournal.com]

Do you know what it's called when you study headstones, or the word for the headstones, beside grave markers? I picked up a book a year or two ago, didn't buy it, and have been kicking myself ever since. Not being able to remember the word involved doesn't help.

[cathemery.livejournal.com]

(This was a really neat entry, btw. Sorry. Got carried away with my own question and hit post before saying so.)

[pjthompson]

Thank you. :-)

[pjthompson]

I don't know what a word for studying headstones would be, but another word for headstones is tombstones.

[cathemery.livejournal.com]

no, it's something much more . . . esoteric. But thanks for trying. :)

[pjthompson]

Thanatology? I became intrigued by your query and googled until I hit upon this:

http://www.gravestonestudies.org/awards.htm

[cathemery.livejournal.com]

The titles of the books don't seem to jive with what I remember. I'm sorry I bothered you - I'll just have to go on wondering in the corners of my mind now and then. It may turn up if I keep looking at the Powell's listings. By then I'll probably wonder why I'm looking at that kind of book. :)

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

Wow... that's really cool. Now I have this mental image of you in a dark room reviewing gravesite pictures, and then solving mysteries of the beyond. Call SciFi!

[pjthompson]

lol--I'll call it Eye Strain!

[darkspires.livejournal.com]

That is so cool! For the brother and the baby it must have been some sort of accident that also took the parents. They would have had the names on had they survived. Did you see any adult graves near?

[pjthompson]

There were no graves at all nearby. The scenario I came up with is that they were twins who died in vitro or shortly after birth and the parents were too distraught or too injured and hadn't thought of names...It just really makes you wonder.

[krsj.livejournal.com]

if they were twins, why label one "brother" and the other "baby"?

wouldn't they both be baby or both be brother? (or brother/sister?)

[pjthompson]

Yep. Therein lies the heart of the mystery. It's just odd all the way around.

[jenstclair.livejournal.com]

Neato!

I've always liked to wander in cemeteries.

[pjthompson]

There's something restful in them. Which I guess makes sense. ;-) And usually plenty of mysteries to be had.

[wldhrsjen3.livejournal.com]

Very cool!

[pjthompson]

Thanks!