Putting the ART in Departed
This summer I spent a lot of time in cemeteries. I’m not sure if this says something about me and my idea of a fun way to spend an afternoon or if it is something activated in my New England DNA. After all, colonists loved three things: God, unnecessary hardship, and burial grounds. In most towns around this area you really can’t take more than fifteen steps without coming across a family burial plot or a granite marker declaring the final resting place of some stalwart Yankee who invented soccer cleats and smuggled secrets to the colonial army. What can I say? You certainly can’t accuse Puritans of not being “on brand” even in death.
Our cemeteries are old, old, old. This in keeping with time period that this part of the country was “discovered” by white folks who suffered from something called a “God complex” that caused them to violently subjugate other people. Pfizer has yet to find a cure. Walking through a New England cemetery can feel like traveling through history, not just in the ages of the headstones, but in the many designs and trends that have evolved over centuries. Skull carvings (not just for pirates!) gave way to angels and cherubs. Ornately sculpted ivy, roses, and lilies, Celtic crosses, and even statues depicting saintly figures are only a few examples of the way graveyard tastes have evolved throughout the ages. I bet you never thought of cemeteries having their own fashions, subjected to the market forces of style and popularity just like Pottery Barn. You’re welcome. But think of it less as “is nothing sacred?” and more about accepting that everything has always been customizable, courting our most base impulses to make everything singular, distinctive, highly personalized—even death.
This crystalized to me a few months ago when I visited The Lowell Cemetery. Lowell, Massachusetts is an industrial-era city northwest of Boston. The city experienced rapid growth in the 1850s thanks to the rise of the textile industry. Mill buildings flourished along the banks of the Merrimack and Concord Rivers that cut alongside the city. A huge portion of American textiles came out of the colossal mill complexes, which also drew massive immigrant populations of men and women from all over the world seeking a better life and more economic opportunity. Lowell is historically known as the cradle of the American Industrial Revolution. In 1860 alone there were more cotton spindles in the single city of Lowell than in all eleven combined states making up the Confederacy. Yes, this is an appropriate urban brag that any respectable Lowell-ian will drop on you in their favorite townie bar! It was also the hometown of Jack Kerouac, an influential novelist and poet of the 1950s Beat Generation whose literary works are probably enjoying a current renaissance for their inclusion on any number of “banned books” lists making the rounds.
Lowell is a great city—it’s got a lot of scrappy, resilient charm, an exciting arts and foodie scene, and the city has restored and preserved many of the original mill buildings so that you really get a sense of “living history” on every block. I visited Lowell as part of my upcoming photo-guide-to unique-New England-destinations type book and in researching the area came across The Lowell Cemetery: one of the area’s prominent “garden style” burial grounds.
The Lowell Cemetery was built in 1841, inspired by Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts. Around here Mount Auburn gets all the hype. It is America’s first pastoral cemetery with over 174 acres of trees, plants, flowers, lakes, and ponds. Part arboretum, part graveyard, and part park, Mount Auburn Cemetery really kicked the whole cemetery game up a notch. The eternal dirt nap never looked so inviting.
The Lowell Cemetery was only the fourth rural cemetery established in the whole country. Located just outside of the busy, downtown center, the cemetery doubled as a social green space where citizens could promenade, enjoying the natural setting while also paying respects (or casting hexes, no judgment!) upon the deceased. But what really caught my attention about this particular cemetery was what can only be described as putting the “art” in departed.
I will be the first to admit there’s a lot of anxiety around the final curtain call. It’s only natural. Awful ways to expire are constantly being brought to our attention, many of them foreshadowed in pharmaceutical commercials promising a treatment that could kill you just as easily as the thing you’re suffering from. At best, we hope the meteor hits and wipes us out along with everyone we love in a fraction of a blink. At worst, we get a lot of time on our hands to consider our fate, but also to plan for the epilogue. We all want to be seen, and we want to be remembered even more. It makes sense that you might be inclined to go big as you go home.
I thought of this while in Lowell Cemetery standing in front of an enormous, regal marble lion cozily crouched atop the sarcophagus housing the remains of Dr. James Cook Ayer, a nineteenth-century patent medicine tycoon. Ayer was born and raised in Massachusetts. He eventually settled in Lowell where he ran his successful pharmaceutical factory until his death in 1878. Ayer was so wealthy they named a damn town after him. GOALS! With someone that rich and powerful, I suppose it was a foregone conclusion he would choose to memorialize himself in the style of a D-list Egyptian pharaoh.
A few more inventive headstones were scattered around in the same network of narrow stone paths. There was an open book spread upon a squat rock; a large, smoothly polished ball of granite raised on a pedestal along with three smaller, bocce-sized balls placed equidistant near the base; and a black cube, wedged into a stone base. I lingered around that one a bit. The shape of so many designs in the 1980s signifying “sci-fi tech future, it exuded a strange sense of bleakness to me. And it felt a little like a dare. If I touched it would it act as some kind of portal, beaming me to an alternate reality? Why take the chance? I’ll find out what’s in the next dimension sooner than I’d care to think about.
And there was the easy chair. It was almost as if someone had dragged a chair from their living room outside to sit underneath a tree with a glass of lemonade. The cushions were rendered in such detail that they appeared plush, so inviting that I had to mentally remind myself, “Don’t sit.” In some kind of obvious playful and loving twist, the arms of the chairs were actually puppy heads. I assume these represented the deceased beloved dogs, forever entwined with his or her spirit. A book lay open on the seat as if the person had put it down for a second to go freshen their cup of tea or grab an extra sweater never to return. The piece had a whole homey, domestic, cozy aura that at first seemed out of place in a cemetery. Then again, why not?
I say that if you get a vote about what happen with your remains you should have the sendoff and internment of your dreams. You want a disco brunch roller derby. You want to lay in repose like a head of state. You want everyone to gather at the north rim of the Grand Canyon with bubble wands and champagne as the sun sets—cheers! Have at it. In death as in life: you do you.
Lens Zen!
We are sneaking up on All Hallows Eve and Dia De Los Muertos! I hope you all have your “Naughty ChatGPT” costumes at the ready. You will win first prize, suck it “Naughty House Appropriations Bill!” I thought that in keeping with the theme of today’s piece as well as saluting a time of year when we might turn our thoughts to the other side of the veil, I’m sharing a few images of my favorite cemetery. That is a weird thing to have and I own it. This plot sits along a windy back road in New Hampshire not far from my family’s shared property. I often stop in and walk around. It’s situated on a hillside, bordered by beautiful, towering maples and thick stone walls. Many of the headstones are Revolutionary War-era. And when the fog and light plays together just so—it suddenly feels like you’re in a whole other place entirely.
I took these images over the last few years in a few different seasons, but I’ve always found that fall is when this cemetery feels most magical.
The pictures are gorgeous! But we have to talk about the headstones. I've never seen such inspired insanity. The armchair was exquisite and I want one now.
When I opened the email, I thought it was going to be about The Departed, aka the movie with Leo and Damon, etc. But this was better! Cemeteries make for great stories. And pictures, apparently. Who knew? (Sheila knew. She knows all.)
Not to weird you out my friend, but cemeteries are my jam! I have not been to this Lowell one but why is this not on the list of the famous ones what with their insane tombstones?! 🪦
Need to add this one to my Grave Bucket List, of which I've already checked off London's Highgate Cemetery where Karl Marx rests, Paris' Pere Lachaise Cimitiere where Rossini and Jim Morrison are buried, and Nawlins' St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. All are a morbidly good time 🧟♂️🕷️👹
Love this one Sheils, hope you have a great Halloween weekend! 🍁🍂🪑