Yes, it happens to the best of us.
A tombstone (and family name) at Calvary Cemetery in Memphis.
Categories
Well, This Goes Without Saying …
Tag: Calvary Cemetery
- Old Cemetery – Detail
- Calvary Cemetery – Today
Last week I posted an old Poland photograph showing a cemetery in Memphis, and I wondered just where it was. Something about the image made me think of Calvary Cemetery, and so I drove over there one day recently and tried to find the exact same location in the old photograph.
I wasn’t entirely successful, but I might be very close. Take a look at the two pictures here. In the background of the old photograph (shown here on the left), I noticed a rather unusual white concrete retaining wall (the image is fuzzy but you can see it) with an undulating top and posts at each end surmounted by large concrete (or stone) balls. There’s also apparently a post close to the center of this little wall, also topped with a somewhat smaller ball.
Well, my recent journey to Calvary turned up an almost identical formation, as you can see in the second image (on the right). The center ball is missing, but you can tell that one was once mounted here. The roadway in the background also looks similar to the roadway in the original photo (you’ll have to scroll down a bit to see the original photo in its entirety).
Now keep in mind, as I’ve said, that the original photo could easily have been taken as long as 100 years ago, so lots of other elements in the photo — the number of monuments, the size or shape of the trees — would have changed drastically.
At the same time, you get a vague impression that the view in the old photograph is looking UPhill, whereas I’m looking DOWNhill in the current photograph. So maybe I need to get over there again and walk all around this particular wall and see if I can find a downward angle on it.
The location of the middle ball also seems just slightly off-center in the newer photograph, while it’s almost exactly centered in the old photo. Though that could be because of the camera angle. It’s too bad the original image is so blurry!
Or maybe I’m in the wrong place entirely, and am going completely insane.
What do you think? About the cemetery part, I mean. Am I getting warm?
Categories
Where Is This Cemetery??
- Mystery Cemetery
I certainly have my hands full these days answering questions from readers. And yes, I know that is my job, but with my hands (literally) full, how am I supposed to flop in my La-Z-Boy, sip my Kentucky Nip, munch on bags of Circus Peanuts, AND work the tv remote control?
It’s almost more than I can handle, which is probably (though doctors can’t say for certain) why I spend my nights crying myself to sleep, in my little cot in the basement of the Mansion.
Anyway, now that I’ve got THAT off my chest, I thought I’d share with you just what I’m talking about. Somebody (oh, I won’t name names) picked up this nice old photograph at an estate sale, taken (as you can see by the name in the lower righthand corner) by the noted Memphis photographer, C.H. Poland. It shows a cemetery with what appears to be a freshly covered grave, considering the piles of flowers.
And the question is: Just where, exactly, is this cemetery?
We really don’t have many clues. There’s no date on the photo (front or back) and no obvious landmarks in the picture. I can’t even make out any names on the tombstones. It’s clearly a rather large graveyard, and it looks a bit hilly, but that doesn’t really narrow it down much, since Elmwood, Forest Hill, and Calvary all have hills and dales.There are a few distinctive gravestones in the background, including several topped with a cross, and there’s some unusual stonework in the foreground.
It also seems a bit cluttery and unkempt, doesn’t it? The tombstones don’t stand completely straight, and the grass looks high.
But I’m stumped. I suppose I could drive around all the cemeteries in the area — assuming that, since this is a Poland photo, this is even a Memphis graveyard — looking to see if I could spot an area that resembles this. And in fact, that may be what I’ll end up doing.
First, though, I thought I’d see if anybody else recognizes the place. Before I go to all that trouble, you see.