Key West Cemetery

I've caught a cemetery obsession this semester. From my incredible love for New Haven Grove's cemetery to all the types of picturesque, rural, garden, and wild cemeteries in every city and throughout history, they just capture my attention and interest in a way that's both food for thought and food for spirit. New Haven's Grove Cemetery, at the time of its original construction, reflected the same ideals that New Haven was founded upon--orderliness and progressiveness. Most Yale students don't know this, but it's actually the VERY FIRST modern cemetery built in the US. And by "modern," I mean a planned cemetery in which people purchased burial plots before they passed away and families were buried together in a designated spot. The old way, which we can hardly imagine now, was having people being buried haphazardly in the city's the common (in New Haven's case, it would be the New Haven Green).

I've loved cemeteries, but just never realized it until this semester. Some of the most incredible places I've been to have been cemeteries, such as the one in my hometown of Wafangdian, located on a rolling hill near my aunt's farm that they graze goats on. My first time there, my cousin and I picked the fragrant acasia flowers blooming on the summer tree to feed the rabbits when we got back.
I also loved the cemetery I found in Turkey located right next to the 14th century Rumeli Hisari castle. One day after work, I went for a run along the Bosphorous River and it started misting when I got to the castle. When I turned back, I decided to go through the cemetery as oppose to taking the main street. It was full of twists and turns and I found myself lost among the gravestones and dead ends many times. The cemetery was also located on a hill and on clear days, it offered a beautiful view of the turquoise Bosphorous River. However, on that occasion that day, walking through the misty Turkish cemetery alone, I felt like I was meandering through another mystical realm and as if time had somehow sucked its breath and stopped. It was absolutely pure magic. I returned to the cemetery a few times before I finally left, and found solitude, peace, and reflection there when my Grandmother passed away while I was in Turkey.

Anyhoo, in this post, I want to introduce another great cemetery I've found in Key West. It also has structures I've never seen before and is built in the rural style popularized in the early 19th century. It was located unsuspectingly in a neighborhood bordered on all sides by family homes.


The plots were for the most part all separated into family plots, and would expand vertically upwards as the families got bigger and the plot more crowded.






They had a spot cornered off for the Jews and Catholics (New Haven's used to have a spot for the "Colored People," those from "Out of Town", and the "Catholics" too. Segregation even in death was the proper way.


In the Jewish tradition, as I found out, people place stones on the grave as a sign of respect.