My niece's husband was a foreign exchange student in Germany (I don't know the exact location) in the 1980's and he said that many of the churches there house the bones of people right in the church. He said it wasn't uncommon to see some sort of containers with bones or cremains in them. ---------- From: CJ Lisa <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SWITZ] Swiss Cemeteries Date: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 9:29 PM I have also found this very interesting. My cousin wondered why her father had pictures of the gravestones of his sister and mother (who lived and died in Switzerland.) My mother had told me about the 25 year rule, so I explained that to her. And it does make sense to me -- who is left after that time to even visit your gravesite -- unless it is a young person or child who has passed, then family would go there for a long time. I have not noticed an abandoned grave in Switzerland at any of the cemetaries that I visited. They all had flowers and some had oil lanterns. I was not aware that there was no embalming in Switzerland. We had this discussion on a German site that I belonged to and it seems that there are caves in Germany with the bones and some bones are even decorated with wreaths painted on the skulls. When I was in Lucerne I thought it interesting, that at one particular church gravestones were lining a walkway that surrounded the courtyard (lying flat and some mounted on the walls) People had placed candles and flowers on the gravestones. I do not recall the dates -- but I will make it a point to look next time I go back. This was not a cemetary but the church courtyard -- I am assuming that maybe wealthy patrons of the church were honored here. I also saw stones mounted on churches. Claire ==== SWITZERLAND Mailing List ==== Going on vacation? Gone longer than 4 days? Go to http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/intl/CHE/SWITZERLAND.html to unsubscribe