© 2018 Rachel L. Shumate | All rights reserved.
There are angels among us, this I know to be true.
One might be with me; one might be with you.
We don’t always notice when enveloped in strife.
But make no mistake, they help us through life.
To serve one another is the task given from above.
The world can be changed with kindness and love.
There are angels among us, this I know to be true.
One could be me, and one could be you…
~ Rachel L. Shumate
~~~
Behind the Scenes…
While visiting family in MO, I wanted to stop by the Calvary Cemetery and pay my respects to my Granny. (She loved pinwheels so I brought her a fancy flower one.) Afterwards, I decided to go on a quest for angels. (Perhaps a bit different than the one implied above.)
I’ll explain… The Calvary Cemetery is truly incredible and has the most amazing headstones, monuments, and mausoleums. I’ve never seen anything like it. The place is breathtaking (no pun intended). My pictures don’t even come close to doing justice to the beautiful markers, as it was high-noon during my visit (the worst possible lighting) and there wasn’t much I could do to help in postproduction either. The angels you see in these pictures are as big, or bigger than I am, and there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of them throughout the cemetery. My main focus was to photograph the angels, but nearly all of the headstones are big and beautiful.
To be honest, I would consider the Calvary Cemetery to be a very worthy tourist attraction. It’s not in the best of neighborhoods, but it is without a doubt amazing and worth seeing if ever you find yourself in St. Louis, MO.
Here are some neat facts about the Calvary Cemetery:
- It is a Roman Catholic cemetery operated by the Archdiocese of St. Louis
- The cemetery was founded in 1853
- Calvary was established due to new city ordinances and the rising number of cholera victims during the outbreak in 1849
- It is 470 acres
- There are approximately 460,000 people buried there
- You can pick up a map and a historical tour outline at the main entrance if you would like to tour the grounds and visit the more, um, notable “residents”
- You can do a burial search if you are working on your family’s genealogy
