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"cemetery"

Vincent Baptist Church Cemetery – Chester Springs, Pennsylvania

by Kaylah Stroup October 1, 2019

I feel like recently a lot of my posts have mentioned how ridiculously cool I think my family is. This is another one of those posts. Back in January, my sixteen-year-old nephew texted me about our many greats great grandfather. He’s super into genealogy which is something that interests me but basically only in the sense that I’d like the information handed to me and then I wanna go see where those folks are buried*. So, when he told me a bit of information about this random family member and mentioned he found the cemetery he was buried at, I was definitely interested!

*That really makes it sound like I’m not interested but I am! It’s just that I have a lot of other hobbies and spending time/money on genealogy sites just doesn’t make the cut at this time. There’s only so much time in a day, ya know?

Nearly a whole year has passed but as I was getting ready to hit the road and head to Philadelphia last weekend for a concert I happened to remember those texts. My nephew had mentioned it was ‘somewhat close to Philadelphia’. As luck would have it, it was only 20 minutes or so off our route. Of course I wanted to take a little pit-stop!

The route there from the highway was beautiful. Hilly, wooded, and speckled with beautiful old homes. I exclaimed more than once “this is where I wanna live!” The cemetery itself sits next to an old church. There are close to 900 memorials listed on FindAGrave but somehow I managed to essentially walk straight up to what I was looking for…

There he is, Daniel Evans. My great great great great great grandfather! Born in 1743 in Caernarfonshire, Wales, he emigrated to the United States in 1752. Daniel is thought to have been a soldier in the Revolutionary War and was a schoolmate of General “Mad Anthony” Wayne. He fathered eight (possibly nine) children. He died at age 76, in 1820.

I’ve never heard of this man. I know no stories of him, aside from what I read on his FindAGrave page but the excitement of finding a relative was immense! I don’t even have any relatives that I know of with the surname ‘Evans’ but suddenly every Evans in this cemetery was cause for squeals of excitement. Let me tell you, I just kept stumbling upon them too! Most were so old it was hard to make out dates and inscriptions. Still, SO exciting!!!

I kind of thought I’d just be sharing some photos from my little adventure and telling you just that it was a relative but gosh darn it, I’ve been cruising ancestry sites for the last oh… four hours. I’m excited to learn more and visit other cemeteries with the excuse of looking for relatives. I have a feeling that’s going to be my new obsession for a bit. While browsing the internet, I found my nephew’s records of our family tree, that’ll definitely make it a lot easier to start finding where folks are buried.

One of Daniel’s sons. So… an uncle of mine?

Here’s to finding more long lost relatives! xoxo

Check out more of my cemetery posts here.

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Mountainview Cemetery + Wild Horses

by Kaylah Stroup July 9, 2019
Mountain View Cemetery in Wyoming

Driving through Wyoming on our road trip, our main interest was ghost towns. I knew from some research I did before hitting the road that the state had A LOT of them.

On the way to Superior, which to be fair I wouldn’t consider an actual ghost town at all, my eagle eye-d husband spotted this cemetery. From the road it doesn’t look like too much. Up on a hill and covered in sagebrush, the majority of the grave markers aren’t really visible until you get up close.

…But within minutes of being inside the small gates, I was exclaiming “this is definitely in my top ten!!!” It hits all the marks for me. Full of unique headstones? Check! Landscaping different than you’d see in the midwest? Check! Old? Check! Kinda sorta off the beaten path? Check! There’s just something truly special about cemeteries in the desert.

Mountain View Cemetery Wyoming

The majority of burials in this cemetery were done between 1900 and 1923, although a new section was opened for public use in 1994. The Superior, Wyoming website notes that most of the graves are dated during the influenza epidemic that followed World War 1.

Did you know that the flu epidemic that swept the world in 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people?! 25% of the United States population got it and within one year the average life expectancy dropped by 12 years. Ooof! The national archives and records administration has some information on this which you can find here. Quick, interesting read with historical photos + documents. We did not learn about this in school so I definitely just spend a couple hours learning some history!

As well as finding this excellent cemetery, we also spotted wild horses! It started with one. When we pulled over to take a photo of it, I spotted the baby! Then as I got the 70-200mm lens on my camera and set up my shot, I spotted even more of them. There ended up being nine of them in total!

(Little side note here, I LOVE this lens. At this point, it’s a road trip essential! Being able to get gorgeous animal photos without disturbing them is priceless.)

Not to sound dramatic buuuut it was magical. I’ve never been a horse girl but seeing wild horses is honestly one of the coolest things ever. I was over the moon. There’s just something really special about it. In all our road trips, this is only the second time I’ve seen wild horses. I hope it never loses its magic.

Wild horses in wyoming
wild horses in superior, wyoming

Our time in Wyoming was short but it left me wanting more! My feelings on it are similar to my feelings for Utah which are ‘holy cow, why does no one talk about this gorgeous state!?!” Totally underrated! I can’t wait to go back.

Other posts from this trip –

  • Ohio to Arizona & back
  • the abandoned Anasazi Inn
  • Mel Gould’s Buryville

Check out even more road trip posts under the ‘travel‘ tag & more graveyard goodness under the ‘cemetery‘ tag.

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Old North Cemetery

by Kaylah Stroup November 14, 2018

Throwing it back to August’s New England road trip again today!

As I mentioned in previous posts from this trip*, we had no real destinations or purpose. Jeff wanted to eat lobster roll and I was interested in the many, many old cemeteries that cover the area. Even with those things in mind, we were really just driving around hoping fun things would fall into our laps. Not our brightest idea. Works in the desert because of the lack of other people but aimlessly driving through areas with high traffic is the worst.

Old North Cemetery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire really was something that just fell into our laps though! While driving down the highway Jeff saw a sign for Portsmouth and asked if I’d like to take go there. I said, “why not?” I’d never been there before and I’ll always take any opportunity to explore a new area, even if only for a brief moment.

I think we both spotted the cemetery at the same time. I basically couldn’t get out of the car fast enough!

Old North Cemetery was established in 1753 and is the second old cemetery in the city of Portsmouth. Gosh darn it! See, if I had done my research beforehand like a normal person I could have visited the oldest one too. Looking on Google Streetview, it looks pretty awesome. Guess we should go back! It’s only an acre and a half of land but it’s jam-packed full of history, incredible headstones, and my favorite things – like skulls and chubby cherub faces. The cemetery is surrounded by a pond, a railyard and… wait for it… another cemetery. Basically, it’s perfect.

I spent so much time wandering around in the oppressive heat trying to see every single headstone. Every few steps I was motioning to Jeff, who was sitting in the air-conditioned car, how excited I was.

One of my favorites. Although not an old stone, what a title! ‘Sea captain of this town’!?! I also really appreciate that it says ‘husband of’. That’s not common at all.

Until next time, Portsmouth! We’ll be back with more time to wander, and maybe a better idea of what to get into so we don’t miss out again.
xoxo

More from this trip –
▴ Three days in New England
▴ Ponyhenge
▴ The Burying Point
▴ the Atlantic Ocean
▴ Old Burial Hill Cemetery

 

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Old Burial Hill Cemetery

by Kaylah Stroup September 17, 2018

Old Burial Hill Marblehead, MA

Old Burial Hill Cemetery in Marblehead, Massachusetts came highly recommended by many folks whose travel suggestions I hold in high regard. Not that that matters because after visiting Salem I had completely forgotten about those recommendations. Luckily, as we were leaving the area, I thought to look at the FindAGrave app. I spotted the name ‘Old Burial Hill’ and instantly recognized it as somewhere I remembered looking up previously. I’d have definitely been bummed to miss out on this beauty!

Old Burial Hill Cemetery was established in 1638. It’s one of the oldest graveyards in New England. Surrounded by gorgeous old homes, on top of a rocky hill, overlooking the Atlantic, it basically could not be any more picturesque. The headstones are all beautifully preserved, and in incredible shape for their age. Nearly every one of them covered in symbolism. Skulls galore!!! Will I ever get over the excitement of skulls on headstones? I think not.

Aside from the hot sun relentlessly beating down us, our visit couldn’t have been more lovely. It seemed like every time I turned around there was something super awesome that caught my attention. I was especially fond of how close the houses were to the graveyard. One house, in particular, stands out in my mind it had a kitchen window that looked directly out onto the cemetery. Taking photos of headstones near it felt weird because it was THAT close.

'2 children' headstone

More from this trip –
▴ Three days in New England
▴ Ponyhenge
▴ The Burying Point
▴ the Atlantic Ocean

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Thurber Cemetery

by Kaylah Stroup August 15, 2018

The very last stop on our epic family roadtrip / destination wedding adventure was easily one of my favorites. It’s hard to say something is your favorite when you literally just got married a few days earlier and spent a whole bunch of time with the people most important to you. So, let’s call this my favorite aside from the things that basically automatically get ‘favorite’ status. Although, one could argue an old cemetery complete with friendly livestock grazing inside automatically ranks up there as well.

This was another FindAGrave app find. Just like our previous stop, we were all hankering for a place to stretch our legs and explore. I browsed Roadside America but didn’t find anything that looked interesting on our route so I turned to my second app of choice, FindAGrave. The reason I always say it’s not the best is because of the limited information it gives on places. It’s nice for locating cemeteries but who really knows if it’s going to be worth checking out or not. I decided it was worth the gamble since it wasn’t too far off the highway in the direction we were heading.

We arrived at the address only to see it was wooded, gated, not visible from the road and presumably, up a bumpy looking dirt road. Worse than that was that, there was someone at the gate closing it up. We pulled into the large pull off area in front of the gate and asked ‘Is the cemetery up there?’ hoping if he had some sort of authority he’d say it was okay if we poked around. He cheerily responded that yeah, it was up there, the road was driveable, he was just visiting his grandparents, to make sure to close the gate behind us and to have fun!

We crept up the dirt trail in our rental cars. After going through a second gate, we entered the cemetery. I could immediately see that it was going to be a good one. Then I spotted why there were so many gates and why it was so important to keep them closed! A beautiful cow was grazing alongside the graves. I’m not sure if there were more but I was excited just to see her. It was a really beautiful sight, and of course, I’m always excited to see animals. I was also very happy we’d been dragging around the 70-200mm lens. I was able to get some nice close up without disturbing her.

After getting my shots of the seemingly random cemetery cow, I started to wander around the rest of the grounds. It seemed like everywhere I looked there was something that got me all excited. One of the things I loved most was the huge range of different grave marker types. The whole thing was the complete opposite of the uniformity most cemeteries have. There were crosses made from pipes, headstones that appeared to be stamped somehow, metal crosses, and of course, your classic granite obelisk among many other unique one of a kind things I’d have trouble even describing.

Thurber Cemetery has a ton of history, and what makes it most interesting is that they have signs scattered about with little factoids. Instead of being dry and boring, they were actually fairly humorous. Clearly written by someone with a lot of opinions – check out the one a few photos below. “idiotic cemetery restoration attempt…” 

I hesitate to describe a cemetery as ‘fun’ but I’m having a hard time thinking of any other descriptor that works as well or sums up my feeling on it. There was a cow, there were cactus, a little bit of every type of grave marker you could think of, and interesting information sprinkled throughout. I loved Thurber Cemetery. I’m really glad we got off the highway to check it out!
xoxo

More from this trip;
▴ just married!
▴ instant photos from our wedding week
▴ that time I got married in a ghost town
▴ Cadillac Ranch
▴ Boothill Graveyard
▴ Twin Arrows + Two Guns
▴ Steins Cemetery
▴ abandoned motel in New Mexico

Clearly, it needs updated since in the two years after hitting publish I’ve found many others I LOVE but I have a list of my top ten cemeteries!

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Steins Cemetery

by Kaylah Stroup July 30, 2018

ghost town cemetery, Steins Cemetery

The FindAGrave app isn’t perfect but it did lead me here and that definitely counts for something!

Normally the drive back from anywhere feels so much shorter because you have whatever you did to occupy your mind. This definitely should have been the case, since Jeff and I had just gotten married a few short days earlier, buuut the drive from Phoenix back to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport was long. LONG. Loooong. I guess what made it feel so long was that we knew we were on a tight-ish schedule. There was time to explore but at the same time, we all just really wanted to get some miles behind us so that it didn’t seem quite so daunting. Fifteen and a half hours is a lot of time in the car!

It had only been a few hours since our detour to Tombstone, AZ but we were all ready to find somewhere to stop again. This will be a repeating theme throughout the rest of the posts I have from our drive after the wedding. I love long car rides but what’s the fun if you’re not stopping every twenty minutes to check out things along the side of the road and take photos?! Luckily, my husband and my parents feel the same way.

I haven’t been to too many of them, but I’m hooked on desert cemeteries. On any road trip, I’m going to make an effort to find interesting cemeteries but in the desert my need to find them is even more intense. The FindAGrave app showed Steins Cemetery coming up, it looked pretty small. Only 24 memorials are listed but the three small thumbnails in the app looked promising. I was stoked from the second we pulled up! It was beautiful! Okay, maybe not everyone’s vision of a beautiful cemetery but the absolute perfect desert cemetery. A strange variety of memorial types – flat stones, crumbling concrete crosses, and small wooden planks – all weathered by the hot sun. No two headstones were the same, and most weren’t even remotely similar to the ones beside it. It was an interesting hodgepodge of styles, for sure!

desert ghost town cemetery Steins Cemetery ghost town cemetery

The cemetery is small but an excellent place to stop, stretch your legs, and of course, poke around a bit. There’s even a geocache right outside the cemetery! Here are five reasons to start geocaching, if you haven’t already.

More from this trip;
▴ just married!
▴ instant photos from our wedding week
▴ that time I got married in a ghost town
▴ Cadillac Ranch
▴ Boothill Graveyard
▴ Twin Arrows + Two Guns

ghost town cemetery

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Tinker’s Creek Cemetery

by Kaylah Stroup February 22, 2018

One of my favorite fall traditions is visiting cemeteries. Obviously, if you’ve been following The Dainty Squid for any amount of time you’d know it’s not just a fall thing for me. Buuuut there is something super special about them when the weather starts to get a chill and the leaves litter the ground. Honestly though, everything is better is the fall…

I shot these photos and started this post back in October. Jeff had taken the day off work because he wasn’t feeling well. Luckily, by midday, he was feeling well enough to go on a little adventure with me. It was like a bonus weekend day! I wanted to go check out a new cemetery alas there aren’t many in the area I haven’t already throughouly explored. He ended up suggesting Tinker’s Creek Cemetery. He had actually taken me here on one of our first dates to try and impress me. Whatta guy! I thought it was super awesome but at the time I was still really shy about taking photos in front of him so I didn’t end up shooting anything that day.

These days I’m anything but shy about taking photos so I took my good ol’ time poking around the cemetery while he hiked around the nearby trails. It was rainy, gloomy, and truly just the quintessential fall day. Perfect for finally photographing this old place!

Tinker’s Creek Cemetery is one of those off the beaten path places that always ends up making those lists of “most haunted”. It’s located on the top of a big hill in the middle of a field. You have to park at the bottom, in a small pull off, and hiiiiike. The cemetery is often described as abandoned but rampant vandalism doesn’t actually equal ‘abandoned’. The path there is obvious, and both times I’ve visited it’s been well maintained.

Still, there’s definitely a spooky air to the grounds…

Check out even more interesting graveyards under the “cemeteries” tag!

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Mill Fork Cemetery

by Kaylah Stroup January 3, 2018

utah, cemetery

Throwing it back to November’s road trip again! (Scroll on down to the bottom of this post for a complete list of posts about this trip in order)

The last full day of our trip was all about making our way, slowly but surely, back into Colorado so that we find a hotel close to the airport for our flight the next morning. We didn’t really have many things mapped out and we’d be covering a lot of ground that we had already gone over a few days earlier. Roadtrips are weird because they’re equal parts rushing, and just sightseeing at our leisure. Like, it’s totally fine to spend all day wandering around somewhere that wasn’t exactly planned but the last thing we want to do is drive around looking for one specific thing. Some Google research told us there was lots to explore but there were also lots of mixed reviews on how accessible said spots were. We decided to just wing it and drive. If we found something worth photographing that’d be great. If we didn’t that just meant we’d get to the hotel sooner to try and sleep off our colds!

While cruising down the highway we spotted an interesting looking sign in just enough time to slam on the brakes and pull in. The sign read Mill Fork Cemetery. I had nooo idea what to expect but I was excited because I had said earlier in the day “I just want to check out like one more cemetery before we go home.” As we crept slowly up the rough driveway I spotted a rickety wooden bridge off to the left. The only thing visible past that was a fence. I could not jump out of the car fast enough. I darted to the bridge, tip toed over it and excitedly opened the gate. Initially I was a bit underwhelmed. There were only a traditional headstones, there rest were small plaques. Inside the big fenced in area was a few other fenced in areas. The more I looked around though, the more I realized what incredible find this was!

Mill Fork Cemetery is super small, FindAGrave lists a mere forty-six memorials, but this place sure packs a punch. Maybe it’s the surrounding landscape? Or the fact that it’s so well maintained? I mean, how many cemeteries have you been to that have a guestbook!? While not the prettiest or easiest to photograph, the small fenced off areas inside the larger fence felt so intimate. The pristine grounds made it clear someone cared very very much about this place. The guestbook, which was housed in a small house shaped box, made you feel welcome. Visiting here didn’t feel like you were invading someone’s personal space. Instead I felt like I had been invited to be apart of something really special.

By the end of our short visit at Mill Fork Cemetery I had already declared that it ranked among my top five favorite cemeteries! If you’re out cruising around Utah, you need to put this spot on your itinerary.

If you’re interested in reading more about Mill Fork Cemetery, I recommend checking out this article from the local newspaper. It seems as though many buried in this incredibly peaceful place died tragically.

Other posts from this trip…

▴ engagement story / Cisco, UT
▴ Antelope Island
▴ Eureka Cemetery
▴ ghost town – Silver City, UT
▴ ghost town – Frisco, UT
▴ abandoned mill

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Eureka Cemetery

by Kaylah Stroup November 22, 2017

utah, old headstone

After ooh-ing and ahhh-ing at all the incredible animals on Antelope Island I suggested we head to Eureka, Utah. Eureka is listed on quite a few websites as a ghost town so obviously that was what drew us there. The photos looked promising. Upon arriving we quickly realized this was not that case. I mean, there are definitely abandoned houses, and storefronts but there is also a pretty sizable population of folks who still reside there.

Would it have been cool to get some shots of the abandoned buildings? Sure but shooting buildings that are surrounded by people’s homes is something I’m not super comfortable with. It feels like an invasion of privacy. Neither of us had cell phone service, and hadn’t bothered to really think ahead about where we’d be heading next so the only thing we could do was just keep driving. It didn’t take long before we stumbled upon Eureka Cemetery. It didn’t look all that interesting from the road but it seemed like a decent place stretch our legs for a few minutes. The majority of the graves near the front of the cemetery were fairly new meaning not something I’d photograph but then I spotted ‘big deal’.

eureka cemetery, utah, unique headstone

I had to get a shot of that grave marker. I hopped out, got my photo, and realized just how lovely the colors were. I’m generally not a fan of shooting in direct sunlight but I’ve found that when I shoot cemeteries in full sun I usually end up loving those photos the most. The lighting conditions mixed with the gorgeous colors (Utah, I love all your yellows!) yielded some spectacular photos! I’m so happy with how these turned out. The incredible mountainous scenery, the barren cemetery, the unique headstones! I’m in loooove!

headstones, eureka cemetery eureka cemetery

Other posts from this trip…

▴ engagement story / Cisco, UT
▴ Antelope Island

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About Me

About Me

Hello!

I'm Kaylah! Renovating a 150-year-old home in Northeast Ohio. Likely found in my garden.

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new rug, fresh floor, polished furniture! gah! it’s just so pretty. 🥲🖤

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one of my favorite things to do is pull my chair o one of my favorite things to do is pull my chair over directly in front of the fireplace in my office, snuggle up under a blanket and read. Without fail, every single time, within ten minutes Professor joins me! It’s one of those things where I always think “I wish I could get a picture of this!” 

Well guess who finally remembered to set up the tripod before getting cozy! 🖤
my favorite four books I’ve read so far this yea my favorite four books I’ve read so far this year! ✨ have you read any of these? any great reads in 2023 yet?! 📚🖤

(As always, I’ve got them in my stories if you want a screenshot. If you see this after the first 24hrs, they’re in my saved stories under ‘books!’ along with a bunch of others. 🖤)
Combining my old interests (cemeteries!) with my n Combining my old interests (cemeteries!) with my new interests (this old house!) 👻🏚️ Can’t tell you how excited I was to find that the original owner of our home is buried a short drive away. Had to go say hey and let him know about the heavily tattooed, green haired gal working on the house now. 😜
🐢!!! Okay, now to make stands for everything el 🐢!!! Okay, now to make stands for everything else that isn’t easy to display because this turned out so cute!!
the spare room throughout the years! ✨✨✨ 1. the spare room throughout the years! ✨✨✨
1. Today. 🖤
2. 2022 - Refinished the floor, handmade custom trim, fresh walls I spent 99 years mudding and sanding to smooth out and repair.
3. 2021. Peace out carpet squares. See you NEVER!
4. 2020. The room on the day we moved in. 
5. The room in 2013 while the house was abandoned.
just a nice little photodump ✨✨✨ cats, the h just a nice little photodump ✨✨✨ cats, the house, rainbows, lake erie 🖤
now vs when we bought ✨ plus some bonus plant ph now vs when we bought ✨ plus some bonus plant photos because yesterday was plant maintenance day and everything is looking 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻!
slowly but surely! 🖤✨ slowly but surely! 🖤✨
If you never hear from me again, it’s because I’m embossing all my books! 💁🏼‍♀️📚📚📚✨ For real, I’m obsessed! I’ll share a link in my stories as well as a better shot of what mine looks like.
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THE DAINTY SQUID
  • blog
    • all the posts!
    • stroup mansion
    • some of my favorite posts
    • plants + gardening
    • beauty, fashion + hair
    • reviews
    • window shopping
    • explore everywhere
  • about me
  • contact