Julie, Like you I do not understand how someone can destroy a cemetery and think nothing of it. I was discussing with a friend not to long back, about a historical cemetery in our home town that was going to be destroyed for a church. My friend felt that they should build a church on the site because, in her words "a church benefits everyone and dead people have no history and they don't benefit anyone." Now don't get me wrong, churches are a good thing, but for her to think that "dead people have no history and do not benefit anyone" was just too much! Some people have no intelligence! Good news the church is going to pick another site to build and keep the cemetery as it is. However I did wonder....... If it had been her ansesters in that cemetery would she have had different feelings about it being distroyed? She stated that she would not, her feelings would have been the same, but I do wonder.... Julie wrote.... I was looking up names on rootsweb's florida tombstone transcription pages today and saw the following item posted on one of the surveys: Note: According to several elderly ladies that were visiting the cemetery the day I was talking this census and paused to chat... "Prospect Church and Cemetery" was located in a south-westerly direction from Williams Cemetery. While they couldn't agree on approximately how many people were buried there, they did agree that "one day it was there and the next it wasn't with the tombstones dumped into the lake and a citrus grove being planted". there are a great many things in life that i do not understand. one of them is how this sort of thing can take place. it's not just the act of destroying a cemetery, but the mind-set of the person who sees nothing wrong in doing so. julie thames howell jax, fla

like you, my spontaneous side stamped its little foot and shouted, "how could they?" and my logical side (they argue perpetually) said, "well, she must really believe that when the body dies the soul goes on and, after all, dirt is dirt." i'm afraid the "dirt is dirt" approach wins all too often. but, to me, cemeteries - like funerals - are for the living. obviously once someone has died they don't care about earthly things. it is the living who go on and their ancestors who try to fit together bits and pieces of family information so that we can feel more whole; so that we can feel, in an eartly sense, like we belong to something that was, and is, and will be for many years to come. belonging is comforting. and your friend's statements speak volumes about how she feels. good for the church for picking another site. julie ----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 12:34 AM Subject: [FLDUVAL] cemeteries Julie, Like you I do not understand how someone can destroy a cemetery and think nothing of it. I was discussing with a friend not to long back, about a historical cemetery in our home town that was going to be destroyed for a church. My friend felt that they should build a church on the site because, in her words "a church benefits everyone and dead people have no history and they don't benefit anyone." Now don't get me wrong, churches are a good thing, but for her to think that "dead people have no history and do not benefit anyone" was just too much! Some people have no intelligence! Good news the church is going to pick another site to build and keep the cemetery as it is. However I did wonder....... If it had been her ansesters in that cemetery would she have had different feelings about it being distroyed? She stated that she would not, her feelings would have been the same, but I do wonder.... Julie wrote.... I was looking up names on rootsweb's florida tombstone transcription pages today and saw the following item posted on one of the surveys: Note: According to several elderly ladies that were visiting the cemetery the day I was talking this census and paused to chat... "Prospect Church and Cemetery" was located in a south-westerly direction from Williams Cemetery. While they couldn't agree on approximately how many people were buried there, they did agree that "one day it was there and the next it wasn't with the tombstones dumped into the lake and a citrus grove being planted". there are a great many things in life that i do not understand. one of them is how this sort of thing can take place. it's not just the act of destroying a cemetery, but the mind-set of the person who sees nothing wrong in doing so. julie thames howell jax, fla