Taphophile Tragics # 5

Libraries have the Dewey Decimal System. The cataloguing of the departed is more libertarian.

In Rookwood Necropolis, the main cemetery in Sydney, there are over a million departed souls, in an area of about 300 hectares. What you see in the first photograph is a snapshot of the Locater of Rookwood Departed Souls. The second photograph shows that in Pere LaChaise, in Paris, they have a more 'romantic' approach to locating resting places.

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Welcome to the fifth week of Taphophile Tragics. Please link directly to your post, rather than simply to your blog in general. Mr Linky opens at 10pm Monday, Sydney time (GMT+11). I monitor the links daily, and am managing to visit everyone who posts. I appreciate your most diverse contributions.

When you can, please visit the contributing bloggers to show your appreciation of their endeavours.

Taphophile Tragics # 4

Carolyn, our Tragic from Oakland, last week, introduced the term 'columbarium'. Here is a view from inside the Botany Columbarium, in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. Botany has mausoluems, graves, lawn cemetery sections, cremation walls, and cremation gardens. Inside a columbarium can be quite stuffy. Letty, our Tragic from Ararat Grace, our Tragic from Perth, likened them to a 'library' of the dead, which is so spot on. However, the positive is that you learn a bit about the departed because small items are left within the 'shelf'. With any sort of luck they will not be weathered, vandalised, or stolen.

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Welcome to the fourth week of Taphophile Tragics. You will be familiar with the posting methodology, which I have detailed in a drop-down beneath the blog title. Mr Linky opens at 10pm Monday, Sydney time (GMT+11), and, hopefully, will close at 10pm Friday.

Please visit the contributing bloggers to show your appreciation of their endeavours.

Taphophile Tragics # 3

Bleak and sorrowful, or beautiful and uplifting? When it comes to cemeteries, it is not all in the eye of the beholder.

Layout, landscaping, and plantings all play a role. In Montparnesse Cemetery in Paris, these wreaths convey the love and respect in which the departed was held by the many mourners at her graveside in April 2011. Parisian cemeteries swathe their departed in living flowers.

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Welcome to the third week of Taphophile Tragics. You will be familiar with the posting methodology, which I have detailed in a drop-down beneath the blog title. Mr Linky opens at 10pm Monday, Sydney time (GMT+11), and, hopefully, will close at 10pm Friday.

Please visit the contributing bloggers to show your appreciation of their endeavours.

Taphophile Tragics # 2

With five cousins, I travelled to Jamieson, Victoria, to locate the resting place of my great-great-grandparents, Stephen Cole (1890) and Hannah Wilkins Cole (1878). Being a family of meagre means, I did not expect grave markers. Stephen's Death Certificate stated that he was laid to rest in Plot 6 of the Jamieson Cemetery. Hannah's certificate was silent on the subject.

Whilst chatting at the Historical Society, I unearthed that the original town cemetery was involved in a surveying mix-up with the State School and, whilst all markers were moved to the new cemetery, all deceased were left in the ground. That portion of the original cemetery that was not resurveyed to the school, is now an arboretum. So I give you a photograph of a glorious aroretum in the 'high country' wherein rests my great-great-grand-mother, Hannah Wilkins Cole (1820-1878).

Lux eterna, pax eterna.

Welcome to the second week of Taphophile Tragics. You will be familiar with the posting methodology, which I have detailed in a drop-down beneath the blog title. Mr Linky opens at 10pm Monday, Sydney time (GMT+11), and will close at 10pm Friday, if I can work out how to turn it off!

Please visit as many contribututing bloggers as you can make time for.



No need to leave a comment here. I would much prefer you to visit a contributing blogger and show your appreciation of their endeavours!

Taphophile Tragics #1

Kangaroos play an invaluable role in the Wauchope General Cemetery, NSW, Australia

Welcome to the first week of Taphophile Tragics. You will be familiar with the posting methodology, which can be found in a drop-down beneath the blog title. Mr Linky opened at 10pm Monday, Sydney time (GMT+11), and will close at 10pm Friday.

Please visit as many contributions as you can make time for.



No need to leave a comment. I would much prefer you to visit a contributing blogger and leave a comment there!

Taphophile Tragics # 1 - Commencing Tuesday 27 December

The photograph above shows a very small part of Rookwood Cemetery which is the largest cemetery in Sydney.

Welcome to Taphophile Tragics.

As the side-bar explains, a taphophile is someone entranced, addicted even, to wandering through cemeteries and graveyards.

I envisage this meme as a historical/landscape look at cemeteries the world over. I do not envisage the meme to stretch to accommodate ghosts, the after-life, or astrological phenomena.

Do not feel restricted to a cemetery around where you live, however, please identify the cemetery, and tell us something that you liked and why. For mine, the text is as important as the image.

I think it essential that the photographs that you use, are ones that you have taken yourself and therefore are able to vouch for the copyright permission-to-use.

The 'Mr Linky' for Taphophile Tragics will be activated at 10pm Monday night, Sydney time, which is GMT +11 during summer. It will stay active until 10pm Friday Sydney time.

Create your Taphophile Tragics post to begin with. Then, come here and enter your name and the link to your post in the spaces provided. Please do not enter Mr Linky until your post is published on your own blog. Be sure that your link goes directly to your Taphophile Tragics post.

Add a link to this blog in your post, to enable others to join if they wish. It helps if you then visit the posts of other Taphophiles. If you visit them, and leave a comment, they'll know you've visited and may visit you in return. By the way, no need to comment here, at the weekly Linky post. I would much prefer you enter your own post's link, and then go read, and comment on, other contributions.

We are all tragics, so let's pull together!