Afternoon at Bonaventure Cemetery

With a mix of locals, semi-locals, and tourists, I joined a large group to take advantage of the Bonaventure Historical Society's Free Tours that take place second Sunday of each month.  There were three tours-one at 2p.m., another at 2:30 and the last one at 3p.m.  The last group was large and I was ill prepared.  I walked away unscathed but tired and thirsty.  Although the tour would be by the river with some breeze relieving some of the heat (I fought for shady spots), I would recommend to anyone wishing to take advantage to think about water, sunscreen, and bug spray.  Our guide did offer repellant  and warned to watch where we stepped or stood as there were fire ants to keep an eye out for...

Although I had been out visiting Bonaventure before, it had been quite a bit of time and after reading a lot of Savannah history, it was fun to have a guide show us around and point out the founding fathers of Savannah. He connected the graves and family names to the homes and squares in the historic district. 

We walked by where the inspiration to Hard Hearted Hannah is lain, spent some time talking about Johnny Mercer, and said hello to little Gracie Watson, the monument of the little girl is a likeness based on a photo taken of her in her Easter finest, shortly after, she caught pneumonia, died and was laid to rest.

Once plantations, the cemeteries are said to be for the living.  My experience has been that of meeting family gardening and taking care of the plots and tourists in our group referenced "the book" where the author has cocktails in the cemetery.  Our guide pointed out that just recently Bonaventure had been named one of CNN's top ten list and I thought it funny that a women next to me commented how it's unusual to visit a cemetery on a trip, but I find just like museums, I have visited a number of cemeteries and the amount of history is amazing, like Our Town and Spoon River Anthology-the lives are celebrated and they seem to whisper stories to us and demand to be remembered.

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