I love cemeteries but there is just something about cemeteries in the fall that makes them a thousand times more beautiful, and more peaceful. This cemetery is close to a few other places I frequent but somehow I’d never spent much time poking around in there. I finally got around to doing it last week and I couldn’t be more pleased with my photos. I actually spilled tea on my laptop just a few hours after I got done editing these and my first thought was “Nooooo! The cemetery photos!!!” After a few days in a bag of ride my laptop made a full recovery! Hooray! Although I am still finding pieces of rice everywhere…

It was a gorgeous day for checking out the cemetery, albeit pretty cold. The leaves were all different colors, and the sky was overcast which is my favorite to shoot it but for some reason all my shots looked uninspired. I just wasn’t able to capture what I was seeing in person. Right as I was about to leave a headstone off in the distance caught my eye. When I walked over to photograph it I realized there were all kind of tiny little headstones along the fence that had, for the most part, been neglected and forgotten. Ivy had begun to cover most and I even found a few that had been completely buried underneath growth. My fingers were so cold I felt like they might freeze but I had to keep looking for other little hidden treasures.

Monroe Street Cemetery is a historic cemetery on the West side of Cleveland, until the late 1890’s it was actually the only public cemetery on the West side. It is said that burials began in 1818 but the earliest headstone that can be found is 1827. There are currently over 31k people buried on the 13.63 acres, over 500 of which were soldiers. During the civil war, soldiers who died at Army camps near Cleveland were often buried here. There are also two mayors, as well as many notable folks who helped build Cleveland and Ohio City buried here.
xoxo

Bonus fun Monroe Street Cemetery fact : It was fenced during the 19th century to keep out wandering hogs.