The Old Nauvoo Cemetery

Wednesday, on our p-day, I decided to walk up to the the old Nauvoo Cemetery south of town. It is about 3 miles from our apartment, and it was on this walk that I saw many of the animals that I posted the other night. There was no one at the cemetery and I spent about an hour there trying to read some of the old grave stones (they are really deteriorated- even more so than when we were here several years ago). The spirit was so strong, I hated to leave. I hope you can feel a little of that spirit as you view these pictures.

The beautiful path leading into the cemetery.

This life size statue is at the entrance..depicting a pioneer family who have just buried a child. Sad to think how many hundreds of times that must have happened here and along the trail west! It made me cry to look into their faces. Even the little boy looks so pained!

This headstone is new, as you can see, and has been placed to honor Edward Partridge, the first Bishop of the Church. It has inscribed on it the scripture from the D&C 9:11, when he was called to be Bishop. As you can see...he died in Nauvoo May 27, 1840, before the prophet was martyred. Our apartment is on the street named after him

The view of the cemetery...isn't it beautiful... but so sad to think of all the heartaches associated with each one of these deaths.

You can see what poor condition most of the headstones are in. Many had been knocked over like this one and covered with moss.Some were just rocks, like the one on the right.

There were a few beautiful large headstones like this where the family had placed a new one to honor their loved ones who had suffered and died here. This is the front of the stone and below is the back which tells a little about Edmond Durfee, and the story of how he died. If you can read this...it will give you a little idea of the kind of stories that are all over here! There were also the original headstones and it looked like the Durfees had also buried 3 or 4 children here! As it says on the front of the stone,

"THEY CONSECRATED THEIR ALL TO THE LORD" as did so many of these good saints!

I had never been in this building before even though I had been to the cemetery each time we have visited Nauvoo. I went in this time and it was amazing. Read the plaque below and look at the video below that. The walls were filled with hundreds of names of people, many children who died here in Nauvoo between 1839 and 1846. It was so touching!

Be sure and turn off the music on my blog so you can here what I say on this video. Just scroll down to the bottom of the blog and click on the large circle.