Cemetery Sunday - vacation day 3

Sunday morning, our second full day in Missouri. We wanted to attend church sometime somewhere. As luck would have it there was a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in the town of Louisiana, just the city I had hoped to visit that day. Service wasn’t until 11:00, so we had plenty of time to find the church and then explore a little.

When we had checked into our resort on Friday, the desk clerk gave me a stack of brochures of things to see and do in the area. I believe that one pamphlet was printed solely for my use – “Tombstone Tours: Visit Historical Cemeteries in Pike County, Missouri”. I had to suppress an evil snicker when I opened it up. The poor hubby had no idea the twist my vacation plans took at that moment.

Just up the street from our chosen church was my first victim. Gates of Peace Cemetery, the only Jewish cemetery in Missouri that was north of St. Louis.  

 As I was closing the gate to leave, I smashed my finger. Now it was the hubby’s turn to snicker.

We killed two birds with one stone at the next stop. The Jackson Family Cemetery was right next to the Catholic Cemetery. Neither one was horribly exciting, but it was time to get back to church anyway.

I do not even know how to build up the excitement for the next cemetery. In my journal I described it as the “holy mother of all cemeteries”. Riverview Cemetery in Louisiana contains more than 14,000 graves, or so my Tombstone Tours brochure told me and went on to say that it is in a beautiful location overlooking the Mississippi River. Not even close to an apt description.   

I can’t believe the hubby made us do anything else that day, but he dragged me away so we could eat lunch by the river and then wander up Louisiana’s historic downtown.

 Then I had to find one more cemetery, the Bowling Green City Cemetery. Finally I discovered a graveyard that awed the hubby.

 He was pretty excited by the names on these headstones and wants to know if they are relatives.

Oh, honey, I said, it's all relative.