Plot Sale
I had never heard of the buying and selling of cemetery plots making the newspaper before I found the following concerning my great-great-grandmother:
"Mountain View Cemetery Association to Mrs. Susanna Berger, lot 271, plat 14, said cemetery. Oakland Township; $57."
What is odd is that her husband had died and was already buried there when she bought this plot. Did she move him or was this an additional space purchase for her? That $57 would the equivalent of over $1400 today. Yikes! I bet plots at Mountain View don't sell for $57 anymore...
What is even stranger is the fact that they were buried in what was, even in the 1890s, a pricey cemetery, yet don't seem to have been able to afford a tombstone for either of them. At least some of their many children went on to be quite successful and wealthy yet none of them seem to have thought of getting stones for their parents graves either. What's up with that?!
 |
| 29 Jan 1893, The San Francisco Morning Call, p. 3 |
What is odd is that her husband had died and was already buried there when she bought this plot. Did she move him or was this an additional space purchase for her? That $57 would the equivalent of over $1400 today. Yikes! I bet plots at Mountain View don't sell for $57 anymore...
What is even stranger is the fact that they were buried in what was, even in the 1890s, a pricey cemetery, yet don't seem to have been able to afford a tombstone for either of them. At least some of their many children went on to be quite successful and wealthy yet none of them seem to have thought of getting stones for their parents graves either. What's up with that?!
I've been very surprised (in New South Wales) at a couple of well-to-do ancestors without headstones. In one case (my gr gr grandparents) I was able to confirm one was never installed despite the family having enough money, and strong family ties. It transpires that the inheritor, responsible for settling burial expenses etc, didn't 'get around' to purchasing a headstone, and perhaps thought the money was better spent elsewhere.
ReplyDeletematt