Tag Archives: cemetery

Boston

I arrived in Boston to find out that my Airbnb room wasn’t ready. Workmen were glazing the bathtub (or something like that) and it wouldn’t be done until the next morning, but they had another room for me that night in the same building. The room was considerably smaller but no big deal for one night.

The next morning the workmen still weren’t done. After a lot of messaging back and forth, they finally left the keys for me at the pizza parlor in the same building. I dropped off the other keys in the Keycafe about a half mile away.

The new room—the one I originally rented—was perfectly positioned to be the noisiest room in the building. The pizza parlor seems to be a gathering place, and when it closes at 2:00 AM, people stand on the sidewalk in front of it for another hour or so talking as loudly as possible. The same for the two adjacent bars. Also, everyone in Boston honks their horns at all times to indicate displeasure with what everyone else is doing, or possibly just for the sheer love of honking.

My room is just above the pizza sign

The room was in a good central location, though, about a block from Boston Common. It’s a beautiful park, dating to 1634, and the only park I’ve ever seen with a cemetery in it.

The Quick
The Dead

The adjacent Boston Public Garden dates to 1837 and is even beautifuler.

Boston Public Garden
Lake with Swan Boats

I also followed the Freedom Trail, which starts at Boston Common. It’s a relatively short path that contains significant sites of the colonial and revolutionary periods, including the Old State House, Old South Meeting House, and Granary Burying Ground (where Sam Adams and Paul Revere are buried). Colonial and revolutionary sites are most of what I wanted to see in Boston, so it was thoughtful of Boston to locate them near my Airbnb.

Old State House
Granary Burying Ground
Sam Adams’ Grave
Site of the Boston Massacre

And Roadside America sights there were a-plenty, including a teapot from 1873, a plaque commemorating the creation of the gerrymander, an ether monument, and an Irish famine statue.

Teapot
Gerrymander
Ether Monument
“If I could juuust grab that pigeon…”

Pilgrimage to Waverly

In the Palouse region of Washington, in the town of Waverly, just across Hangman Creek, is the Waverly Cemetery, where one can find a number of Lemons.

  • The Road to Waverly
  • Waverly Cemetery

Most notable to me was my great-great-grandmother Diana Catherine Hainer Lemon.

From the Waverly Gazette, Friday, February 7, 1908 (with my corrections):

Mrs. D.C. Lemon, died at the home of her son, J.A. Lemon, Waverly, Wash, Thursday, Jan. 30, 190[8] the cause of death being the infirmities incident to old age.

Diana Catherine Haine[r] was born at St. Catherine[s], Canada, May 27, 1827. She was married to Isaac Lemon in Burford, Canada, Jan. 24, 18[4]5. Nine children came to bless this union, seven of whom survive her. Shortly after their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Lemon moved to Eri[e] county, Pa., where she resided until ten years after the death of her husband. Last April Mrs. Lemon __ moved to Waverly to live with her son, J.A. Lemon.

Mrs. Lemon was a devoted Christian and had been a church worker for more than 60 years. She was 80 years, 8 months and 3 days old at the time of her death, and while she had lived beyond the limit of ordinary lives, her death was a sad bereavement to her loving children, who have the earnest sympathy of all. Interment was in the Waverly cemet[e]ry.

  • Diana Catherine Hainer Lemon
  • James Alexander Lemon

My great-grandmother Merta Lemon was the ninth of the nine children mentioned. My grandmother was the eighth of Merta’s eight children.

Other Lemons were also present.

  • Lemons
  • Lemon with Pipe Demarcation

There were several of those bathtub-shaped demarcations, with no indication of their purpose. Most of them were concrete, but Abby’s was made out of metal pipe.