Old City Cemetery Tour

Despite how it might appear I actually do not spend all of my weekends at cemeteries. Though I am averaging about one day a month. I've been wanting to visit the Sacramento Old City Cemetery for one of their history tours. This Saturday's did not disappoint, the focus was police, law, and fire. Sacramento was a pretty rough place in the late 1800's. One of the many bizarre stories was of a gambler who mortally wounded a blacksmith, the shooting pretty much started a riot. The blacksmith did live long enough to hear of the gamblers hanging for his murder (even if he wasn't dead yet) and now they are buried 5-7 plots away from each other in the cemetery.

This is our main tour guide. Don't worry there were several other individuals also dressed up in period garb who shared stories at different grave sites.

I was walking by this headstone at a pace just fast enough to read the first two lines. 

Stopped me dead in my tracks.

Upon reading the headstone in entirety I was much less shocked. I wonder if this association has had a resurgence in the past few years.

I may have mentioned before that this cemetery has an adopt a plot program (which I was crushed to learn requires a 2-year commitment), where one takes care of a plot which has no relations to care for it. Hence almost every plot is a fountain of blooms. It really is one of the most botanical cemeteries I seen.

On top of the amazing flowers the majority of the headstones are unique and visually stunning. Next month's history tour focuses on headstone carving...I die. I have to make room in my schedule.

This monument to Ulises S. Grant and the Civil War is actually painted. I've never seen that before, stained glass - yes, painted sculptures - no.

The last stop on the tour was the firefighters plot. Each headstone listed the engine co. number of individual.

Glad Dad is now retired.

The weather was beautiful (minus the wind). It was a great Saturday morning.