Pilgrim's Rest Cemetery

Pilgrim's Rest Cemetery
October 30, 2009
NE 63rd Street
Oklahoma City, OK
© 2009 by Laura Anne Heller
On Halloween Day I went to a cemetery to meet other photographers to shoot pictures. No one else showed up, or I came late or early. Nonetheless, I had the cemetery all to myself. I wandered around the tombstones and was a little disappointed at first. All I saw was the plain kind, just regular headstones without much embellishment like statues. I am used to the statuesque grandeur of cemeteries further east. The expressions or discolored metals provide wonderful images. So I thought I wouldn't be at Pilgrim's Rest for long, until I walked down a small hill and realized half the cemetery is unkempt. Tall grasses were waving in the Autumn breeze on a sunny day around headstones peeking from below. It provided a spooky factor. So I began taking photo after photo. Some headstones were in disarray, falling over, cracked, overgrown or nearly completely invisible. Some no longer marking a grave itself. This one, with a little lamb on the top of the headstone, leans against a tree. Several tall and beautiful trees are in this grassy area of the cemetery. Long dark shadows and autumn colors after the sun began leaving noon towards three o'clock. I was there for nearly three hours.
I also took a number of plain photographs of headstones because I have visited a website called findagrave.com. I am a volunteer photographer for the Oklahoma City area cemeteries. Someone researching their genealogy sometimes wants a photograph of a family member's headstone because it documents location and dates, sometimes a personal transcription, or even links to other family members buried nearby. So I took a number of photographs to contribute to the findagrave.com website records. I do plan to revisit and take pictures of the rest of the headstones which are missing photographs for Pilgrim's Rest Cemetery.