Monday, March 23, 2009

Cemetery Service

Joseph finished up his Citizenship in the Community merit badge over the weekend. Part of the requirements is a community service project. We had a hard time finding one for some one his age until United Way sent him (us!) over to the city cemetery to rake pine cones. He was trying to be done by Saturday, so we spent most of his afternoons there last week trying to get his 8 hours in. Joseph was pretty sick and tired of pine cones by Friday afternoon, but he stuck it out and did a great job.


We pretty much only saw one part of the cemetery, but it had some neat headstones. One was for President Hinckley's grandparents (Ira and Adelaide Hinckley),


another for Dan Jones (a body guard of Joseph Smith in Nauvoo and Carthage)


and my great, great grandparents, John Joseph and Mary Frances Mosely Woffinden, their son, John W. Woffinden, as well as Mary's father, Thomas Mosely.


The Woffinden's were Joseph's favorite because they are not buried near any trees at all, much less pine trees! The saddest for all of us were the children, especially those just a day or two old. There were far too many of those. It was sobering for our children to realize just how unusual it is for most babies to survive into adulthood like they do now. Our medical system isn't perfect, but compared to life in the not-too-distant past, we're doing ok.

It was a crazy week and I'm not sure Ryan actually got his homework done everyday, but I really loved that project. I may go back myself sometime just to help out. There was such a quiet peace while we were there. It felt good to be doing something nice for these people who came and went before.

6 comments:

Mom O' Nine said...

sweet post.

Shumway Family said...

What a great service project. I have always wanted to go to the Provo cemetery, no I'm not morbid, my great, great grandfather is buried there and several years ago, our family built him a new monument/headstone and I would love to actually see it instead of just the pictures.

kyleandbeth said...

We took a wal through that cemetary one year when we visited Keith and Nicci for Thankgiving. The next week in school Kaci had to write about another state or something. Anyway, her comment was "Utah has a lot of cemetaries." I guess we should have atleast found our relatives.

Keith and Nicci said...

I searched for that Woffinden headstone about a million times before we left and never found it, but I did find some other Woffindens and took pictures! I'm so jealous! I used to walk there 3-4 times a week!

Joy For Your Journey said...

what a great service project! And I loved the pictures of the different headstones. Dan Jones has always been one of my favorite people from church history

Kathleen said...

What a great idea helping at the cemetery, there is a lot of history there. That's neat you were able to find your own relatives also.