The Mythmaking of Mourning

                                       

   Lily Butterworth

Spring 2024

Project Goals and Background Research

What are the differences in grave markers, symbolism, and offerings between children and adults and how does time influence/change that? Throughout the course of history, death has been the one true constant connecting us all through grief. Mourning rituals and periods of grief have been noted for millennia, but how, if at all, does this change throughout the centuries of  medical, economic, and cultural innovation? ‘Childness’: An Alternative Approach to the Archaeology of Childhood through Cemetary Studies, found that “children’s burials became more visible in the cemetery landscape in the seventeenth century, reflecting their greater presence in public spaces generally, as the family’s affection and grief for the child was increasingly seen as “a loss that was deemed worthy of public record and attention” (McKerr et al. 2009, pp. 128–29). When we choose to look through the discomfort of lives ended too soon, you find something akin to a gift, a peek into the lives of individuals who were lost before we began. Through the influence of culture and religion, a different atmosphere emerged. Grave goods and offerings came brightly colored, balloons and stuffed animals. “... the association of children together generates a different kind of space—one that is comforting for the parents and family, because the child is with other children, mirroring other dedicated children’s spaces in life, such as playgrounds.”  (Buckham 2003, p. 170).

Mount Hope was originally called Oakland Cemetery, named in 1911 by the women's auxiliary. Over 100 Union soldiers are buried there, as well as headstones dating back to the early 19th century.

Methodology

I visited Mount Hope cemetery on April 4th. I observed hundreds of headstones, as well as flowers, food, toys, and many other offerings. A majority of the headstones I charted were well maintained and visited semi-regularly. Find A Grave allowed me to properly identify and chart headstones that were overgrown or aged.

Results

There have been many changes in the norms of mourning. Many of these changes are influenced by cultural environment and history, such as gender roles and the religious beliefs of a community. Prior anthropological research has suggested many infant graves are kept nearby one another- though this was not my observed experience. Most, if not all, infant or child graves were next to a family member. These graves were not forgotten, or simply put to the side. There is still much to know and learn about these people, and their final resting places are simply a factor in the overall historical importance of grief and remembrance. 

Through the use of applied anthropology, this topic could be expanded by charting offerings and inscriptions of infant graves throughout the states in order to see how these remembrances change throughout the centuries. 

Examples of some forms of offerings at the resting place of Logan Smith, he was sixteen when he died. 

The frequently visited grave of John Peyton Murphy, a man who appreciated his personal space. 

Discussion and Conclusion 

Infant death can never be justified, rarely even accepted. It can be explained- through toy cars and stuffed animals, flowers symbolizing innocence, a baseball cap with its threads coming undone. Grief is something that is felt, not learned, and through studying the heartache of loss through generations- the only real difference between them is the amount of space lying between the limestone and granite. 

Citations and Sources

 Find a Grave. “Find a Grave.” Findagrave.com, 2019, www.findagrave.com/.

Roser, Max. “Mortality in the Past – around Half Died as Children.” Our World in Data, 2019, ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past.

Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Palliative and End-of-Life Care for Children and Their Families, et al. “PATTERNS of CHILDHOOD DEATH in AMERICA.” Nih.gov, National Academies Press (US), 2019, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK220806/.

Muller, et al. ““Childness”: An Alternative Approach to the Archaeology of Childhood through Cemetery Studies.” Religions, vol. 10, no. 8, 25 July 2019, p. 451, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10080451. Accessed 19 Oct. 2020.