While updating memorials on Find A Grave recently I encountered two burials in the wrong cemeteries. Well not burials exactly, just the headstones. And not the wrong cemeteries exactly, just different cemeteries.
The 1st incident came to my attention via email. I received the following message (from a 3rd party, not from the contributor mentioned below):
Find A Grave contributor such-and-such has made a suggestion to you regarding your Find A Grave memorial for Johanna Lillig.
Their suggestion:
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This is a duplicate memorial. See memorial number 143212850.
I followed the links provided to the memorial I created for Johanna in 2013 and the one I had allegedly duplicated. And understood how my memorial had been duplicated in 2015.
So I drafted a message to the other Find A Grave contributor:
“Hello there,
It appears we each created a memorial for Johanna in St Mary’s Cemetery; mine in Northbrook and yours in Evergreen Park.
I photograph headstones too, and I trust the physical location of a headstone (on your memorial) more than the location reported in an obituary (on my memorial). But I think both are important parts of the deceased’s story.
How would you like to correct our dupes? Would you be open to moving your headstone photo to the memorial I created – it has quite a few links to other Lilligs. Or should we ask Find A Grave to merge the memorials?
Let me know your thoughts,
Laura”
In the meantime, I returned to adding the headstone photos I had taken at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis to Find A Grave.
And came across this one which I thought was really neat because of the sundial on top:
But what really caught my attention was the burial location listed.
Because you may recall, I was in Lakewood Cemetery not Layman‘s Cemetery.
And Layman’s Cemetery was already on my mind because Mother Nature had thwarted my plans to see a movie there just three days earlier.
“See a movie?” you ask, “in a cemetery?”
Yes! But not just any movie, The Curse of Frankenstein! How cool is that?
Old Layman’s Cemetery, now known as Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery, is looked after by the Friends of the Cemetery. Big screen movies are played there every few weeks in warm weather as fundraisers for cemetery restorations.
Unfortunately, for now this is where the tales end. The Find A Grave contributor who duplicated my memorial hasn’t yet responded to my message and Mother Nature continues to rain on Cinema in the Cemetery.
But who knows? Maybe there is another chapter in the works!