Banner photograph of St. Thomas Episcopal Church Cemetery, Bath, North Carolina - Taken by Judith Richards Shubert October 2008


There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.
- Thornton Wilder

Monday, November 10, 2008

WHY GRAVEYARD RABBITS, YOU ASK?

Greetings! I’m so glad you decided to stop and visit. This blog was started in response to an invitation by Terry Thornton, Founder of The Association of Graveyard Rabbits.

“The Association promotes only the historical importance of cemeteries, grave markers, and the family history to be learned from a study of burial customs, burying grounds, and tombstones. Members of the group all promote the study of cemeteries, the preservation of cemeteries, and the transcription of genealogical / historical information written in cemeteries.”

Why Graveyard Rabbits, you ask? That was the brainchild of Terry and was taken from a poem by Frank Lebby Stanton., the American poet from the Deep South.

“In the white moonlight, where the willow waves,
He halfway gallops among the graves---
A tiny ghost in the gloom and gleam,
Content to dwell where the dead men dream,” that is the Graveyard Rabbit.

Although my primary focus on this blog will be the small country cemeteries found virtually down every other country road in Texas, I also will post comments and photos from trips to other states while vacationing or visiting relatives. I would like to do research on and learn more about the burial customs in small, out-of-the way places such as Brad, Lingleville, Whitt, and Tolar; taking photographs of monuments and stones I find unusual or beautiful and doing my best to faithfully transcribe the information found on them.

My emphasis may change, but the focus will not. The Association of Graveyard Rabbits has been given the charge to publish a dedicated blog to graveyard study. I hope you will visit my Covered Bridges often and find something useful or interesting occasionally.

4 comments:

  1. JUDY,

    Thanks for being the Graveyard Rabbit of the Covered Bridges. I look forward to reading more of your articles. I appreciate your kind words about the Association of Graveyard Rabbits --- but more important, I appreciate you starting a dedicated blog with a primary emphasis on the small country cemeteries in your region.

    Terry Thornton
    The Association of Graveyard Rabbits

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am anxious to see what you learned in Tolar last week-end.

    ap

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you, Terry. You have been a great source of encouragement as has the footnoteMaven! I'll do my best.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hope you check back often, Sis. There were some beautiful monuments in that little cemetery in Tolor. I'll get the photos online as soon as possible.

    ReplyDelete

Blog Widget by LinkWithin