F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction (New Weird) Author

Cemeteries

St. John in the Wilderness Cemetery – Upstate New York Vacation 2014 – Part 4 of 4

by

St. John in the Wilderness Cemetery, Lake Clear, N.Y. (Aug 15, 2014)
St. John in the Wilderness Cemetery, Lake Clear, N.Y. (Aug 15, 2014)

After visiting Ausable Chasm, the St. Lawrence River, and Boldt Castle, we made a drive past the old homestead and surrounds, including visiting one of NYS’s fish hatcheries (I used to bike down to the “Adirondack Fish Hatchery,” as it is now called, as a kid; there was no fence, then, and I’d walk among the pools of little fishies), and the local cemetery.

I like visiting cemeteries…I know, sooner or later it won’t be a “visit” (not that I plan on being buried), but I like them for several reasons. Anyway, I realized I’d never documented the cemetery I grew up near, in Lake Clear, N.Y.

The cemetery is part of the church we used to attend for part of my childhood (my family and I are no longer Catholic), and happened to be a short bike ride down the road from where we lived, the church located at 6148 State Route 30, Lake Clear, NY 12945. The cemetery is located in the opposite direction, to Lake Clear Junction, where you take a left (remaining on Route 30), then drive up just a touch, and you’ll see it on your right, just before the turn-off for the dump.

Anyway, I know—knew—several interred here. One was a childhood friend (Dirk Ewan), and one was Mr. Hohmeyer, whom I’ve talked about before. Dirk was three years older than me and a big dude. He was 17 when he died. I remember him having been a gentle soul…an extremely kind-hearted individual…which is rare in a strapping, seventeen-year-old (I could be wrong, but my young-self’s recollections seem to recall him being kinda big). His mom was a friend of my mom, and he and his family used to come down to the lake and hang out with us. Dirk, however, would never go into water above his shins. He was deathly afraid of it, and made no bones about it.

In 1974, he drowned.

An accident, but he drowned.

The Trapl’s lived down a little way from us, past the church. When dad had had a landscaping business (additional job, he was still a Forest Ranger), I’d go with dad helping out in any way I could, digging, muscling trees and such around, chopping out tree trunks. That last part involved Mr. Trapl. He labeled his place, “Trapl’s Yalna.” I don’t know what that means, nor the language. Google Translate said it detected the language “Azerbaijani,” and translated it into “just.” Anyway, one later afternoon-into-early-evening we’d been down there trying our damnedest to remove a tree trunk. As some may know, you don’t just “remove” tree trunks. Their roots extend at least as far down as their foliage extends upward. But we did our best, into the darkness, employing my dad’s truck, chains, and grit. I could be wrong, but I don’t remember having completed that job, but we gave it our best. We might have just cut around the visible roots and had been done with it, but I just remember all the grit and effort with my dad, and how cool it was, and that we were working into the “fall of darkness”!

One of our family members was buried (or died) here, May 7, 1968. There used to be a temporary marker. It’s long since gone.

I went to school with one of the Sayles family.

There were a couple other family names I recognized, but didn’t recognize the interred individuals.

Except for more gravestones, it looks near exactly what it looked like when I lived there (sixties and seventies), except there was no chain link fence around the back…not sure about the front, but I don’t remember one, and it really wouldn’t make sense to have a fence in the front, if there wasn’t one surrounding its perimeter.

The only other memory I have concerning this cemetery is an amusing, odd one: I was 18 and was driving alone to the dump with a load, and as I passed this cemetery, the new (at the time, 1979) Styx (one of my favorite bands at the time) tune, “Renegade” popped on the radio. I thought that was “coincidental” at the time, which I would now term “synchronistic.”

“Oh mama, I’m in fear for my life from the long arm of the law
Lawman has put an end to my running and I’m so far from my home
Oh mama, I can hear your crying you’re so scared and all alone
Hangman is coming down from the gallows and I don’t have very long….”

Next post: Donnelly’s Corners—the best soft ice cream ever!

 

 

Related articles

 

Cemetery Art

by

By Robin from Kraków, Poland (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)
By Robin from Kraków, Poland (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)

You know, one might well ask, what the hell, Frank? Why are you so fascinated with cemeteries?

Fair question.

I’m fascinated with life…and life involves transitions. Part of those transitions…is death.

Death…cemeteries.

I posted my query to myself on this same question, in my post Cemetery Dance, where I attempt to answer this question. But, since I’ve gotten onto Pinterest, I found something else that piques my interest about cemeteries: all the really cool cemetery art. Yes, art. The stuff is incredible. It’s art that rarely seems to get the time of day. Sure, some of it is creepy, but to someone, like myself, who’s interested in the paranormal and supernatural, wow, it’s some of the neatest art out there! A real-life Night Gallery of sculptures! And what they reveal in their composition can be quite stunning. The love and caring that went into their creation, the expression of their love for the dear departed over which they now reign can be downright striking.

So, rather than post all kinds of Pinterest photos here (if that’s even legal…), please take a look at some of my collection. I’ve only recently gotten onto Pinterest, so I don’t have a ton of material, but I do add to it kinda frequently, so please, feel free to stop by off and on, during your travels! Hope you find them as fascinating as I do!

Related articles

The Assumption Cemetery

by

The Assumption Cemetery, October 2013
The Assumption Cemetery, October 2013

Yesterday I posted about Silver Cliff Cemetery. Today, I’m posting about the sister cemetery up a little farther on that little dirt road, called The Assumption Cemetery. It’s a Catholic cemetery (and I’ve read Silver Cliff was a Protestant cemetery) and isn’t as old as Silver Cliff.  Most of the graves in Silver Cliff were 1800s, while in Assumption, there were many more contemporary graves.

Curiously, my wife and I noted a preponderance of “Franks” buried here.

That reminded me of the time my dad and I were staring down at my grandfather’s gravestone during my grandfather’s service, over 21 years ago. My grandfather was the “Sr.” of the “Jr.” and the “III” of us, but his gravestone did not have “Sr” on it. After the service I turned to my dad and remarked how that was our name on the gravestone. We both chuckled at how unreal it was attending our “own” funeral!

Anyway, since this was later in the day, I loved the long shadows that developed at Assumption; it reminded me of the Vincent Price film, House of the Long Shadows, I’d just watched the other night. It definitely added an extra bit of atmosphere to the place. And there are a couple shots I have that really turned out great, one a small tilted wooden cross and another of a wooden cross propped up by bricks that lent a particularly eerie (human?) shadow….

Note, I’ve attached links to my other cemetery posts, below. Take a tour!

So, without further ado, here is The Assumption Cemetery:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Related articles

Silver Cliff Cemetery

by

Silver Cliff Cemetery, Silver Cliff, Colorado
Silver Cliff Cemetery, Silver Cliff, Colorado

Yesterday, my wife and I visited the Silver Cliff Cemetery, at Silver Cliff, Colorado. It’s a stone’s throw east from Westcliffe, Colorado. We picked this cemetery because of the drive…and that it’s supposedly haunted. It’s listed as the “most haunted” (scroll to the bottom to read about it) Colorado cemetery. Of course, you need darkness and a moonless night to see the supposed blue and white lights, but we went during the day…also to go on a drive on such a beautiful, crisp October day that it was. We saw no glowing lights that are said to hover above the graves, and are also written up in National Geographic (August 1969, Volume 136, No. 2). I did a quick search for the NatGeo magazine, but didn’t find any entry into one, just outlets looking to sell it to me, and now, to search NatGeo’s archives, you need an account. Not creating one.

Our visit was interesting…once entering Silver Cliff, you take a left on an unmarked street (should have been labeled “Mill Street”) just before the only pizza joint in town (on the left), drive down a short stretch of Mill Street blacktop, then onto a dirt road, which takes you out into the open Colorado plains. Lots of sun and wind. Open space. This, as well as another cemetery we also visited just up the dirt road from it, The Assumption Cemetery (will post tomorrow), both repose before the beautiful Sangre de Cristo mountains. Basically, they’re not your typical, Night of the Living Dead layout, but, this is Colorado. They both had some beautiful and interesting gravestones, and, as always, these places always fascinate me about the lives lived and lost. Who were they—really? How’d they die? How’d they live?

What are they doing now?

Here are some links to read about Silver Cliff:

Top Colorado Cemeteries to visit

Silver Cliff Town

Silver Cliff Lore 1 (lights)

Silver Cliff Lore 2

Silver Cliff Lore 3 (lights)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Related articles

McColloms Cemetery, Brighton, New York

by

McColloms Cemetery, Upstate New York
McColloms Cemetery, Upstate New York

For the past week, I’ve been in waaay upstate New York (about an hour south of Montréal), visiting family, and while there stopped by a small cemetery I’ve been wanting to stop by for literally many, many years, and never had. I’ve driven past this cemetery for so long, both as a high school kid on the after-school athletic bus to and from athletic “meets,” or on the after-school “late bus” dropping everyone one off after after-school sports practices (more likely this), as well as an adult visiting family.

I’ve kept from inserting a comma between the “m” and “s” in this post, since there’s not one on the cemetery’s sign.

McColloms Cemetery is a private cemetery (which I did not know at the time—and no one came out to meet us while we were there), located on Route 30, 6.3 miles north of the intersection with Route 86, in the town of Brighton, NY, which was first settled around 1815.

One of the headstones is for Michael Samburgh (1959 – 1988). I knew him in high school, and found his picture in my year book the year before I graduated.  Rest in peace, Micheal.

Cemetery Walk—Fairview Cemetery

by

Who...is watching WHO...?
Who…is watching WHO…?

When my wife and I stopped by this cemetery the other week, it was a gorgeous October morning, the wind blowing tons of leaves from the trees. I tried to capture a couple intentional shots of the leaves flying through the air, because they were really brilliant and many, but they really didn’t come out in these pictures.

As in my Cemetery Dance post, I love the atmosphere of this cemetery. Loved the different kinds of gravestones we found. Found a handful being crowded out by trees. Found one that looked exactly like a specter had appeared on its stone. My wife showed me the grave of the famous nature photographer, Rich Buzzelli. My wife knew him since they were kids—and he’d actually been the photographer at our wedding. “People” really were not his subject, but she’d managed to convince him to do it, and he’d done an outstanding job. He was such a nice guy. Usually that word can be meaningless, but for Rich, it really described the man as I met him. A few years after our wedding, he was struck and killed by lightning in mid-conversation with his girlfriend, on the slopes of Pikes Peak, in Colorado Springs.

Fairview Cemetery is on the west side of Colorado Springs, on 1000 S. 26th Street. Once again, I got lost in the imaginings of the people beneath my feet, like Maggie (b. 1915) and Jimmie Heath (b. 1914), died 1933.

Related articles