Visiting Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery - Nao Okada

 We visited the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery on 25th April in the morning. My experiences with this cemetery were the ghost tour at night and the database which I touched in Digital Humanity course. I have known that there are a lot of people from 19the century because of the course I have taken before, however, seeing the old tombstones which were hard to read were a vivid experience. I could see various types of the gravestones differ from area to area, not only the shapes and colors but also the degree of preservation. In addition to the fresh flowers on the tombstones, those differences raised awareness that this place is active, new ones are keep added, and people are visiting. Even to the tomb of unknown soldier died in the Civil War, a flag was placed by visitors.

What was interesting to me is that the designs of the tombstones were various in the past, but not so much recently. As I walked further from the entrance on the Main Street, gradually the designs were unified and the space between each other increased.

As a Japanese who was born and raised in Japan, the scenery of this cemetery was very different from what I am familiar with. Since almost every Japanese is buried cremation and the bones are kept in small cinerary urns, I did not have to worry about stepping on the body. However, this cemetery caused me anxiety because I could not tell where I can walk.