Cemetery Trip

I think every generation tortures their children with a cemetery vacation where you go and see the headstones of ancestors.  I know my family endured one growing up and Joseph's family did too. Well, this year it was our turn to torture our kids--and me too.  Joseph really wanted to visit the Artz Family Cemetery where about 20 of his ancestors are buried.  To be perfectly honest, we only did it out of love for Joseph.  The thought of traipsing through cemeteries was not on my list of fun family vacations, but I knew it was important to Joseph.  Joseph had a list of 3 cemeteries in fairly close proximity to visit in northern Illinois so we made that the first stop of our St. Louis vacation.

The Artz family cemetery is a family cemetery so it isn't kept up--at all.  I don't know what I was thinking, but I wasn't expecting 2 foot high weeds over the entire area.  It was gross.  Joseph was the only one to have long pants and shoes so I didn't let anyone else in the cemetery for very long.  I could just imagine all sorts of undesirable creatures lurking in the weeks...Joseph found one too!

Joseph was happy at his cemetery though and took quite a few pictures of the headstones.

 

 

 

Our other two stops were in well maintained cemeteries so they were more enjoyable.  Thank goodness it wasn't too hot and humid when we visited.

Headstone at the second cemetery

The best part of the trip was seeing Lincoln and Annika go nuts over a little teddy bear statue that was next to the grave of a 2 month old baby.  It wasn't a family member of ours, but they would crouch down and hug this little statue.  It was precious.

The third cemetery had just one headstone of a husband and wife.  Joseph would be able to tell you who all the people were.

 

I know family history is important, but now that you can see all of these graves on findagrave.com I don't see a need to drag my children to see the real thing.  Sorry, ancestors.  The only cemetery I take my kids to is the one where my dad is buried...it's 10 minutes from my mom's house so very doable.