I think I have a tendency to view cemeteries as a thing of the past. It's easy to look at a cemetery as a single thing, created in the past. I end up condensing the layers into one, viewing everything without much regard for the continuous, organic changes. That view was definitely shattered yesterday. It was impossible to view the cemetery as anything other than an organic creation built over decades.
The clearest example of this is Jackson's direction. Before his addition, the cemetery had 3 entrances. One was at the north end, one was at the east end, and one was at the west end. Jackson faces south. If the cemetery had been created with Jackson's memorial, there would likely have been an entrance at the southern gate.
This continued with the tombstones. They were grouped haphazardly, and there seemed to be no rationale behind the position or direction. There also was little unity in the design of the tombstones.
The main take-away for me was that memorials have multiple layers. In order to fully understand them, these layers must be pulled away and evaluated.
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