Exploring Almost Forgotten Gravesites in the Great State of Ohio

Dedicated to cemetery preservation in the great state of Ohio


"A cemetery may be considered as abandoned when all or practically all of the bodies have been Removed therefrom and no bodies have been buried therein for a great many years, and the cemetery has been so long neglected as entirely to lose its identity as such, and is no longer known, recognized and respected by the public as a cemetery. 1953 OAG 2978."

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Spotlighting Find A Grave Contributor - "LindaB" of Lorain County, Ohio

Below is a listing of the cemeteries Linda has posted memorials on the website:  "Find A Grave":

Virtual Cemeteries - LindaB

Amherst - East (424 names)
Brighton Veterans (53 names)
Brookdale cemetery (1 name)
Brownhelm Cemetery (6 names)
Calvary Cemetery (1 name)
Camden Burial Book (966 names)
Clarksfield Methodist (2 names)
Elmwood Civil war Vets (30 names)
Elmwood Veterans Memorial Circle (24 names)
Evergreen A (477 names)
Evergreen C (404 names)
evergreen J (101 names)
Evergreen K (14 names)
Godette Family (12 names)
Oakland Cemetery, Sandusky (5 names)
Ridgelawn (6 names)

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Click on title to view Linda's profile on "Find A Grave". 
Linda has posted over 27,000 memorials!!

Sharing information about Cemetery Transcription Software

Click on title to read about a Cemetery Transcription Software program that has been used and tested and proven to be worthwhile.

Here are some remarks about it from Ralph Lowell Coleman, Jr. who used it for Maple Grove Cemetery in North Lewisburg, Ohio:

"They still have the original books in Rush Township, but they now also have a big binder for Maple Grove and another for Woodstock which have schematic pages in document protectors, arranged in Square sequential order.  Makes it easy to see and decipher what is sometimes unreadable in the original books.
 
I then took this information and created my database, using the CemEditor Pro-Version that I recommended.  Lots of keyboarding, and linking of photos, but it has proven to have been well-worth the time. 
The CemEditor software provides such great features, and is so easy to use."



Spotlighting Elmwood Cemetery in Lorain, Lorain County, Ohio

My thanks to Linda Bodnar of Amherst, Ohio for providing her scanned images of the Elmwood Cemetery Wall map and various sections of it as well as section blueprints. 
Elmwood Cemetery memorials on Find A Grave can be viewed by clicking on the title. 
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Linda has done an outstanding  job of recording burial information from the gravestones and is in the process of learning more regarding the layout of Elmwood Cemetery from the caretakers. 
Thank you, Linda, for all of your efforts! 
It is my pleasure to share some of Linda's photographs and descriptions here.
The full wall map for Elmwood Cemetery is shown above and various sections are shown below.


Above is the old Veteran's Memorial and below is a close up of the inscription on it
Below is the large Orthodox stone marking the Orthodox section of Elmwood Cemetery
Below are various blueprints of sections at Elmwood Cemetery


Knights of Pythias Markers below
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Additional information provided by Linda Bodnar:
Elmwood has 4 entrances from West to East on North Ridge Road.

Entrance 1: The most Westerly entrance enters at Section 5 which includes Helen Steiner Rice's grave and family lot on the east.

Section 5 like many of the sections is spread across the access road to include the area up to the Thew Mausoleum. Then to sections 6,7,8,9,10,11 . Section 5 and 6 are a 1/2 moon on the map. These are all flush grave markers here.
 
Entrance 2: approaches the chapel through sections 1 and 2. Behind the chapel is sections 3 & 4.
 
Entrance 3: leads through 12/13/14/15 again sections cross the access road on both sides.

Entrance 4: newest leads through section 16 and 17

"Unlike other cemeteries I've seen where the graves are prenumbered, in Elmwood's case, if I understand their system, the sections and blocks are prenumbered, the graves' numbers are based on the burial number.
I also believe they changed their system at some point, because there are some blocks that are alphabetical.
I included a picture of some blueprints that reference the Orthodox section which contain Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, Hungarian churches, these are located across several sections. Many of these are becoming difficult to read.
I learned that in some cases, the last name, first name are reversed on the stone. You'll see the potters field nearby."