One of the best things about my husband's job is that it often requires him to travel to different parts of the north-east and when I can, I like to hop into the passenger seat and visit small town America with him. This week, we traveled to upstate New York, into Mark Twain country and J surprised me with a little side trip to the small town of Elmira - specifically, to the Woodlawn Cemetery.
Yep. The man knows me well. I have at thing for old cemeteries. The history of a place - the old names on the grave stones, the years of their lives (where did they live, what did they do?), the last words carved into stone that give clues as to who they were in life - interests me.
Woodlawn Cemetery has several famous residents, including John W. Jones, a former slave who escaped from Virginia to Elmira, NY, and then joined forces with abolotionists in the area to save over 800 slaves via the Underground Railroad; Ernie Davis, the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy and Samuel Langhorne Clemens who we all know as the American writer, Mark Twain.
Twain's wife, Olivia Langdon, and her family were from Elmira and it surprised me to learn that the writer wrote a good portion of his books, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, while vacationing in this small little town. You can visit his study!
Close to Mark Twain's family plot is an unusual gravestone that immediately caught my attention. Instead of a gravestone, there sits a boulder. I quite like it! The blue patina is absolutely beautiful and haunting. And mournful.
