It's a very interesting cemetery. 4000 people are buried in 15 acres. It was originally founded by the I.O.O.F., but there is also a large section dedicated to Union Civil War soldiers. When walking through you can see the surnames of many of the people who founded parts of town and surnames of some people I still know today.
One day, when I came out of the back side of the library, I ran into a headstone for a little girl. I don't remember her name or if it said why she died, but her epitaph said "If love could have saved, she would not have died ". I don't know why that has always stuck with me. It seems like her parents were heartbroken. Of course they were. While not really the same thing, I remembering thinking about that epitaph when Daisy died.
As I recall, there was a caretaker living in there while I was going to school. I don't know whether that's the case anymore. It was a scary place at night. What cemetery isn't though? One night some friends and I were walking through and talking and we came upon a guy laying on top of a plot. We all froze. Someone poked him and he didn't move so we high-tailed it out of there. I never heard that there was a dead body found, so it was probably just someone who passed out.
I pulled up this map and there are a lot of things that have chanced since I was there. I don't know why that should surprise me, it's only been 20 years since I went there. Hayward field was wide open back then. We would go way up into the stands and drink beer at night. I could cut through there from my dorm to my sorority. Now it's mostly fenced off. Those turf field weren't there. The Bowerman building wasn't there either. It is named after Bill Bowerman, the guy who really invented the Nike shoe - watch the movie Prefontaine).
When I was a Freshman, they were just building the new science building, which I see is called Heustis and I swear that was not the name of that hall at the time. I loved watching the tower cranes. It's one of the things that got me interested in construction.
A lot of campus is still the same. Deady Hall was wear the University started. In the one little building. I had one class in there and you had to walk up about 45 flights of stairs to a room with really low ceilings. Totally not ADA compliant.
One of the things I loved about that campus was the history. The old buildings are beautiful.
There is a cemetery in Colorado that has my all time favorite head stone EVER!! One word.
ReplyDeleteHUSBAND
Yup how bad was he before he died?
Connie
A to Z buddy
Peanut Butter and Whine
My son's University had a cemetery in the middle of it. We thought it was so weird but not much they can do about an old cemetery. Oh, and I know what you mean about visiting your University and seeing all the changes it is a little unsettling and yet great to see progress. Stopping by from the A-Z Challenge,Lucy from Lucy's Reality
ReplyDeleteI love old cemeteries--particularly when the stones tell a little story, however sad.
ReplyDeleteAs for the changing campus thing: I'm both horrified and fascinated by looking at the way places have evolved since my long-ago, faraway youth. I'm not sure there's anything that makes me feel older than driving to a place I used to know well and finding it's barely recognizable.