Three years
ago, I met the man I’d like to marry someday.
When I tell
people that it took until our third date before I realized that I’d like to keep this tall, dark, and handsome stranger
around for a bit, that sounds reasonable. What they laugh at
is that our third date took place at Allegheny
Cemetery in Lawrenceville, and that we’ve made it a tradition to go back every November since then.
The first
burial at Allegheny Cemetery occurred in 1845, and both ordinary and famous
people alike are interred there. The resting places of songwriter and
composer Stephen Foster and actress Lillian Russell are among the more popular
places to visit in the cemetery.
Aside from
history, what interested us about Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Cemetery in the first
place, and what keeps us coming back every year? Well, we’re both used to
finding life in unexpected places and in particular, we are both great fans of The
Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. Allegheny Cemetery was the first
cemetery I’d visited that seemed like a mythical story could spring forth from
its grounds.
According
to its website, “Allegheny Cemetery was created to be far more than the typical
country burying grounds of that age.” It’s true; the evidence of Victorian life
is everywhere. The time period is preserved within the ornate mausoleums and
weeping, lifelike sculptures standing guard over the dead, in the bits of
Egyptian symbolism, and in a tombstone with the words “Split down the middle,”
in what I assume is a Christian reference to the resurrection of Jesus.
What
struck me the most is that there are seats for visitors to stop and rest, even
at the foot of family tombs; the passing of a woman walking her dog through the
grounds seemed miraculous with so much silence surrounding me. I remember
thinking, cemeteries are for the living.
Life pushes its way forward here and the dead manage, even in the smallest of
ways, to be remembered.
Like this guy. I'll have to brush up on my Roman Numerals next time I go, and when I kick the bucket I'll make sure the inscription on my tombstone is written in cursive.
Photos and text by Faith Cotter
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