Saturday, August 17, 2013

Evaline Burns

A woman named Evaline Burns spoke to me today.  She died, aged 35, in April of 1863.  Next to her gravestone, between hers and her husband Abel's, was a very little headstone -- also with the name Evaline -- whose tiny occupant was only days old when she died.  Evaline mere must have died in childbirth, or from its complications.  I was in a small patch of lawn, called Perrin Cemetery, containing some very weathered headstones scattered about.  This tiny cemetery is clearly a remnant from another time, surrounded by an old-fashioned iron gate, nestled next to a Meijer's parking lot and across the street from a Home Depot.

What did Evaline have to tell me?  Something scripted at the bottom of her headstone -- beneath the carving of a hand with its index finger pointing heavenward -- under her name, date of death, and age:

Friends and strangers passing by
As you are now so once was I
As I am now soon you must be
Prepare for death and follow me

Well, I was definitely a stranger passing by and the grim reminder Evaline gave me ("As you are now so once was I") didn't so much send chills down my spine as it did make Evaline seem more real to me as a flesh-and-blood-like-me-right-now person who just happened to die 100 years before I was born.  It was a funny feeling.

But what really arrested my sense of coincidence was a headstone a-ways over from Evaline's.   There I read that one Norman Starr had died August 17, 1863 -- exactly 150 years ago today!  What are the chances of that?  That was a weird feeling:  that I just happened to stop in and snoop around on the exact anniversary of one of the deceased.

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By the way, visiting cemeteries is something actors and writers sometimes do to get names and ideas for characters.  It's a good exercise in letting your imagination wander and wonder!