At 09:34 AM 6/24/2003 -0600, Kathleen Burnett wrote: >For those of you who are visiting the cemeteries and graves of your >loved ones, your ancestors this weekend and have a few extra flowers, >think of placing them on one of the lonely graves which are never >visited. Or, if you are living in an area where you have no one, >think of visiting a cemetery and placing flowers by one of these lonely >graves. I highly recommend that, if at all possible, you visit family graves at least once a year, especially if the cemetery is older and rural, just to be sure that everything's still there and in readable condition. I have graves at two older, rural cemeteries, both of which are in the same town, about 2 hours from me each way. I can manage a short visit a few times a year, but I run into problems trying to swing a long enough visit at least once a year to do some lengthy tombstone cleaning. The lichen has gotten *very* bad since the relative who had been taking care of the stones died in the mid-1990s. (Some of the stones are soft limestone--any recommendations?) Elizabeth Whitaker Easley, SC, about two cemeteries in Jackson Co., NC