Human Beings, Immortal Through Memory: Timothy Plains Cemetery

This cemetery is located on Plain St, Norton, MA. It is around a mile away from my house in Norton, just a short drive down the road. There were approximately 300-400 plots, split up into 5 sections. 4 of these sections have no significance between graves besides that they are all newer plots. The southern most part of the graveyard is where all of the oldest plots reside. Timothy Plains Cemetery is relatively small compared to most decent sized graveyards. This cemetery is owned by the town of Norton, and was first established in 1850.

Aesthetically, this graveyard is slightly unorderly and unkept. The landscaping needs a serious update, and even the walkways seem extremely old and worn, however the fall colors of the trees and leaves do seem to help. There is not much room any more graves, due to the small size of the graveyard. This graveyard is peaceful, and I feel calm as I walk around. There are no buildings, facilities, or even any above ground statues or crypts. Almost all of the stones are marked with a name and date, except around 20 that look absolutely ancient.

The grave pictured above was covered in the most decorations, in fact most graves had little to no decorations. You can tell that someone has been to this plot recently, as their is a ripe looking couple of pumpkins and some really fresh flowers. This grave belongs to Erin Rodrigues, born August 17th 1990, and died Dec 9th 2013. 23 years old is far too young to have a gravestone.

This gravestone has my last name on it, which I thought was kind of cool.

The grave above is the most recent grave that I was able to find. There are two miniature Adirondack chairs and two angels on this grave.

The grave above is the oldest grave that I could find. Esther Clapp lived a long 90 years, being born in 1782 and dying in 1872.

I chose this cemetery because it was the closest one to my house, and because I knew exactly where it was and how to get there. I would not even consider being buried here, as it is not the most well kept cemetery and the grass was mostly dead. Although I don’t think I’d mind all that much, being a rotting corpse and all.

As an anthropologist discovering this cemetery whilst not knowing much about the society of the time, I’m not sure exactly what I would think. I think a small cemetery like this one would make me feel like it’s a testament to family and small town traditions. It would remind me how tightknit people can be with eachother, wanting to be buried in the same plot as their loved ones. Since there were not much decorations, I would be lead to believe that most people bury their loved ones and then never come back to their gravestones. This hints at a certain amount of separation between the living and their view of death.

Below is a map that I drew of the Timothy Plains Cemetery. Below the map is a couple of other pictures of gravestones that I thought were interesting.