Find a Grave Team

Stories Shared in Cemeteries


Amid dark nights and busy holiday schedules, cemeteries play a special role as places to gather and remember those we miss. Many stories of love and loss can be found while walking through the rows of gravestones, and we’ve collected just a few heartwarming examples. There’s something particularly homey about these gravestones, as though they might transport you to a kitchen chair amid the murmur of family or friends, a game spread across the table, and the scent of freshly baked treats filling the air.

Some will find this an especially relatable epitaph. A simple line on its surface, but one that communicates the gift Nedine Barnhouse gave throughout a lifetime. Now the story of that fondly remembered gift will be told for decades to come.

A group visit as family or friends to visit the grave of a loved one is a thoughtful continuation of a story like Nedine’s. What better way to show gratitude to someone with a talent for bringing people together?

Paul Lind’s gravestone tells a story in more ways than one. His love for Scrabble led to a unique backdrop for memorializing some of his defining traits. It continues to connect others to him today, whether they’re visiting loved ones or strangers passing through.

Games have been bringing people together for thousands of years. Playing one as part of a remembrance tradition sounds like a unique way to honor a fun-loving friend or family member whose presence has been missed. 

The gravestone for Marcella Mack captures her love and talent for quilting with a replica of one of her own creations. It’s a lovely monument for what it represents, but also for the way the quilt was designed to drape like it’s ready to be used at any moment.

Cemetery blankets aren’t only found in stone. In fact, for many they’re a Christmas tradition. Originating in Scandinavian countries, evergreen arrangements known as grave blankets, often decorated with bows and ornaments like a holiday wreath, are laid over a grave like a blanket to bring some lively beauty into the frosty season.

Some gravestones lean into seasonal memories more than others. Like the stone for Bonnie Johnson, which shares her recipe for the no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies she always brought to gatherings (and nods to her thrifty use of Cool Whip containers). Naomi Miller-Dawson’s stone, carved to look like an open recipe book, generously displays a beloved family recipe for Spritz Cookies. Or perhaps you prefer the sound of “Mom’s Christmas Cookies” from the gravestone for Maxine Menster. The front of her stone also features an image of the family home—there truly is no place like it. 

(We shared a few other recipe memorials here if you’d like to see more.)

Few things are so strongly connected to memories than food, whether shared at home or brought along to the cemetery for a winter picnic. Maybe this is the year to try one of these recipes out yourself?

Lighting a candle, sharing a mug of cocoa (or something stronger), leaving a gift or decoration where permitted—no matter the gesture, a visit to the cemetery is a beautiful way to acknowledge old memories and make new ones along the way. Even taking a moment to read and appreciate a stone and the life it represents is an act of connection that keeps their story going.

Thank you for all you do in creating community and connection on Find a Grave. What stories have you discovered or honored in your visits to cemeteries? Do you have winter traditions that you’d like to share?  We’d love to hear. Wishing you and yours the best this holiday season, and stay warm out there!  

43 comments

  2. Amazing. One word that always comes up, no matter how much mold and growth is ‘died’. Well we know that! Names and dates, not so much.

  3. phenomenal……I would have never guessed such tributes would be found in cemeteries.
    I think military cemeteries have restrictions on headstones.

    • Military cemeteries, maybe. However, the usual flat bronze plate that WWII guys get can be personalized if desired. My dad was a WWII Veteran and a mechanic for over fifty years. He was a natural and everybody knew it. His bronze rightfully says “Roger Warren Now tuning up God’s Chevy at the Pearly Gates Garage”. . . . .

      • I always knew God had to be a Chevy fan! Your Dad is tops in my book – being a veteran, being a mechanic, being a Chevy fan and having a thoughtful son!

    • Military cemeteries do to an extent, but it was heartwarming to us that on my stepmom’s marker, they had let us put “Don’t hurry, I will wait” as my dad was still alive. When he passed this year, the marker was replaced with “Together again forever”

  5. Love this! Cemetery interest started when I was 3 years old in the little family cemeteries in Morgan County, Missouri. My parents and grandparents honored our ancestors by visiting often and that has given me a lifetime of Genealogical research interest. I have volunteered on Find A Grave 25 years and I’ve visited many cities and cemeteries. Cemeteries carry our history on the stones of our pioneers. Thank you for sharing.

  6. It’s apparent that whoever designed the Scrabble marker doesn’t play Scrabble! The layout shown is invalid because the letters are not all connected, and because there are two non-words. I suppose the lesson is that when you want to memorialize a hobby, don’t trust an outsider with the design.

    • Actually the error is two missing letters. LOVEAB should be LOVEABLE, and FOOT should be FOOTFALL. That will connect all the words. The lesson about design still applies.

    • You are so right! I knew a genealogist, who was a stickler for accuracy. She was related, distantly, to George Washington. Her children wrote her obituary and said she was a “descendant “ of George Washington. When I saw that, I could feel the earth move as she spun in her grave! George Washington did not have ANY descendants!

    • If you played Scrabble, you’d know the game includes 2 blank tiles that can be used for any letter. Just sayin’

    • Maybe you should THINK before you criticize. The maker obviously knows more than you think you do. BE KIND!!

  8. I stopped at a Midwest cemetery a few years ago. Stopped and looked a stone an engraved was “Thanks for stopping by”! Never forgot that.

    • Was it in Marion, Ohio because I have a great-aunt buried in Marion Cemetery whose headstone has that engraved.

  9. For goodness sake, people. Those he left behind who loved him created something to remember him by. Is it really necessary to use someone’s gravestone to demonstrate how smart you are?

  11. Love cemeteries it a window into the past! so much history and seeing new markers and how diverse the cemeteries are. whenever I am at my dads cemetery I drive around to see the new markers to put them here. its interesting since my cousins uncle there mother she isnt by blood her brother is at the same cemetery! plus recently found out a blood relation distant is at the cemetery too.

  12. Thanks to find a grave.com, I was able to find a HUGE piece of our family legacy. With only the name of the town where my family lived (a very small community) I learned thru find a grave that my great great grandfather was buried in a very small church cemetery. The church disbanded, and it was noted that the graves/cemetery was still there, but hard to find.

    So my quest began. I found the town, and since it has a small footprint, I drove the streets, stopping to talk with anyone who might know something. Actually, I didn’t want anyone to think I was “casing their town.”

    Late in the day, I came to a house with an elderly lady rocking in a chair on her porch – yes, truly Americana. I explained what I knew and who I was, and asked if anything might trigger something helpful.

    She laughed and said “I know exactly where you are talking about. There is a house on the main drag – a new house with a large circular driveway. There are a few gravestones in the back yard that couldn’t be moved because there were no heirs available, that would allow them to move the remains to the county cemetery – so they left them intact.”

    I had driven past the house at least 5 times over the course of the day, unaware of what significance this place held to my and my family’s history. Of course, I had to see what was in the yard, and I had to “get into the backyard” past another neighbor, so I stopped and told my story again, and then “trespassed” with the neighbor’s permission, since the owners were not home.

    In the far back corner of the property, under the trees, I found my great grandfather’s gravemarker – issued by the US Army, with his infantry company number. What a find! Funny thing – right next to the gravemarker was a white daisy – yes, literally pushing up daisies!”

    With this new information, I researched again, leading me to the National Archives, where I hit the jackpot! It seems that my great great grandfather, then his widow (my great great grandmother) spent years trying to secure a govt. disability pension, to help support their large family, since he was unable to work.

    The priceless piece of information – a deposition conducted by the government-appointed attorney, attempting to connect my great-grandmother to the family. The deposition was a first-hand account of her birth, with her sister’s account of the event – acting as a midwife. It described everyone in the room and their roles – including neighbor/friend names, the doctor’s arrival – late, because of snowy weather, and details only known and made possible by a first person accounting of the event. Priceless.

  13. Did some searching and came up with a doppleganger (sic) for Paul G. Lind whose featured tombstone is in Portland, OR b. 02/02/1974 d. 03/29/2005. The other Paul G. Lind was born and died on the exact same dates, but is buried in Highland Lawn Cemetery in Terre Haute, Indiana. It states on his tombstone that he was “killed by human wolves”.
    Now that is down right CREEPY.

    • Saw a grave years ago that said ‘killed by human wolves’, it was a females. Did a little research and asking around…guess she got pregnant unmarried and the ‘human wolves’ were so horrible to her she committed suicide. So sad

  14. How remarkable that there were two men with the same name, birth and death dates but lived in two geographically distant places. Makes me want to think that someone wanted him buried where they wanted him buried.

  15. Thanks for the stories Find a Grave.
    What some may see as odd, I find as interesting.
    Cemeteries are informative, quiet and peaceful.
    It’s like visiting your relatives and letting them know you care
    Cemeteries are really for the living

  16. I love these vignettes! Findagrave is such an incredibly valuable resource to those of us who research family history. Stories like these remind us that each grave represents someone who was loved and missed. Thanks so much for this.

  17. My dad was born and raised in a small German Lutheran community in northwest Iowa called Hanover. His grandparents were pioneers. However, we lived in Michigan and Hanover was a world away. Many times we would visit Hanover and my dad would tell stories about the people and events that happened when he was growing up. There were lots of aunts, uncles and cousins to visit. Looking at the area now, most of the farms are gone along with the houses, barns and other out buildings. But the cemetery remains with familiar names on the headstones to remember those who have gone before and were part of that community in a different time. And I love to walk through that cemetery and think of those times gone by.

  18. I have visited many cemeteries over my 80 years on this earth and have found many interesting and believe it or not funny epitaph’s. While this one wasn’t part of the head stone it immediately brough a saying from a movie to mind. This was in a very small church yard cemetery in South Central PA near Chambersburg. Many of my ancestors are buried there. While walking the cemetery to see what other relatives were buried there I came upon and large head stone with a very old black dial up telephone on the top. I immediately thought “ET call home” and we all laughed. It turned out to be the head stone of my great great aunt Catherine Miley Burkholder.
    Coincidence?

  19. My favorite that I saw on a headstone in the local cemetery in which my parents, my uncle and my maternal grandparents are buried was that of an elderly woman. Above her name and dates of birth and death were the words within quotation marks: “See, I told you I was sick.”

  20. Thank you Find a Grave. you have been my favorite go to site in my years of Family research.

  21. I was on find-a-grave one day at my Great Great Grandfather’s memorial and a woman messaged me about a Bible she bought at a thrift store in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. My late Mom had two bachelor Mennonite brothers who lived in Leo, Indiana and were her Uncles. It was our family Bible all in old German with all of our ancestor’s births and deaths in it. She sent it to me and didn’t ask for any money. So, I sent her a large box of chocolates in return. My brother and I are both bachelors too so it was almost mystical how it came back to us from a message on Find-a-Grave. Inside, a page was marked with a leaf. It was a passage about wolves in sheep’s clothing and false prophets. Both my brother and I viewed it as a message from beyond the grave. A warning for all of us, actually. What a treasure thanks to Find-a-Grave. Now that both my brother and I are elderly, we need to find a cousin’s child that will keep a protect it for the next generation.

    These are my Great Great Grandparents and their sons Noah and Ezra are listed here:
    https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/20721548/elizabeth-witmer

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