Grace Episcopal Church

Continuing on with our day in St. Francisville, LA, B and I made time to visit Grace Episcopal Church. The church was very beautiful, but I was more interested in the cemetery, as was B. Probably the most fascinating thing there was an open tomb. B titled her Facebook album, Tales From The Crypt. Dang, I wish I had thought of it first! lol B is a great photographer with a sharp wit. When we both decided this day would be an adventure, I had no idea we'd be climbing deep into a damp, dark grave! When she said 'Let's have an adventure' she meant it!

This must've been a baby or young girl. Isabel is her first name; couldn't read the last name.

Detailed carving of above grave. It said OUR DARLING BELLE.

Open tomb...down we go!

Sweet B. My ISO was too low, as was the shutter speed
which resulted in B looking all ghost-like.
Not a good photo by any stretch, but it fits!

Rear of church.

Linking up with Tex's

Civil War Cemetery and Collection

I found this in my Draft folder, completely forgotten. Not sure why I never posted this from last year, so Veterans Day seemed a good day to publish it. Many prayers and thanks to our military!!! God bless them.

My dad and I visited this civil war cemetery located in Magnolia, MS sometime last year.

Processed with Pioneer Woman's "Heartland" action

It seems odd that flowers were placed here since this soldier has been dead for 150 years.
Perhaps they blew over from another grave.
Processed with Coffee Shop's Vanilla Bakery Glaze action.

This is a small sampling of my dad's Civil War collection. The collection has grown since I last took these photos, so I need to go back and document the new pieces.

My dad actually eats with this spoon. He likes the idea that someone with the initials O.E.F. actually used it 150 years ago.

Same with the fork.

Proudly posing with some of his antique rifles.

An actual bullet that struck the handle of the rifle during the Civil War. 

See the piece of flint in the thingamajig? It somehow created a spark which fired the gun. I'm sure I explained that perfectly. :)

Not sure if this is a Civil War era knife, but it's kind of cool.
Daddy decorated it himself by painting the handle
and adding the tiger eye.

Murdered Aug 3, 1895

On March 13, 2011 I took this photo at the LSU Rural Life Museum. The word MURDERED on the tombstone caught my attention. I ended up liking the bokeh as well and posted it to Flickr.

On July 28, 2012, I received an email from Flickr that someone had commented on and favorited the photo. This is the Flickr comment I received:

This is my family. The O'Neals. My grandpa always said the graves were moved but he wasn't sure to where! I am so glad to find this!!

It was actually two brothers killed that day coming out of church, Albert and Henry O’Neal, brothers, were shot and killed at the door of Antioch church, about 15 miles from Baton Rouge, La, Saturday night, but (by) Henry Picon and his brother Wallace. Bad feelings, said to have sprung up about a young lady, had existed between the parties for some time.

Microfilm Ref Call #559
Microfilm Order #M1992.0966
The Alabama Department of Archives and History
THE HAMILTON NEWS-PRESS
VOL. 1 HAMILTON, MARION CO, ALA. THURSDAY, AUGUST

I believe in tagging photos and I suspect that's how this was found. Kids, tag your photos, because you never know! I thought this was cool beans, so I am posting it on the 117th anniversary of the murder. May God rest their souls.

My Amazing Day (MAD)

Just thought I'd share a little about my day:

• Woke up at 4 a.m. and could not go back to sleep; finally got up at 6:30.
• Let the dogs out for their morning business. Sparky found something stinky in the yard and proceeded to rub it into his fur. He then came inside and headed straight for the sofa blanket, freshly washed from the night before, funkifying it forever.
• Chance threw up on the good rug as I took my first sip of coffee. Twice. No warning.
• The monument company called one HOUR before bringing my mom's headstone to the graveyard. So much for the one day notice. Hopped in the shower and got ready in record time; flew out to the cemetery.
• Car started throwing error messages again. I pressed on.
• Attorney called while errors flashed, asking a question about my deceased sister that I had no answer for. The whole time I'm thinking, 'how much is this call costing me?!'
• Made it to the cemetery, showed the guys the grave, but first had a disagreement with my cousin (who is the church secretary) on placement of the headstone. Turns out I misunderstood, so I fussed at her for nothing. Bad Gail!
• Retrieved camera gear out of the car because a dragonfly was eating an insect on a rusted fleur de lis cross, posing perfectly.
• By the time I got the right lens on, tripod out, and camera mounted, the dragonfly was still there but he was done with his lunch.
• I lost my car/house keys somewhere between the car, the dragonfly and mama's grave. Could not find them to save my life. Searching over an hour, I was drenched with humidity.
• Double D to the rescue--a 30 minute drive for him. In the meantime, another distant cousin, Billy, had arrived and helped me look for the keys. Billy found them within 15 minutes, right by the fleur de lis cross, the same area I had scoured several times.
• I now have a headache the size of Texas.
• Got home to look at the photos I took of a colorful skink and the aforementioned dragonfly only to learn that my camera was set on ISO 800 the whole time.
• Izzy is on my lap as I type this post, emitting the worst gas ever. If I could bottle this stuff, I think I could blow up Iran with one small container.

Taken with iPhone

I texted my friend and asked her if she could write me a country/western hit out of all this mess so we could make a million bucks. She said not to worry, that the cemetery/vomit/dog poop song just made the top 10 on Country Music Billboard. 

I treated my cousin to lunch because I felt guilty for fussing at her. My lunch of bbq shrimp and grits was delicious! And guess what? Yep, I have heartburn. The one good thing from today? The headstone came out nice. So how was your day?