A Facebook friend recently asked what my/our favorite cemetery was. Ooh. Cemeteries. There are too many to narrow down to just one. But here are my top five I’ve been to:

5. An unnamed cemetery on top of a hill in southern Ohio, where there are about twenty graves, all related. I nearly died myself getting to it, as a man in his 20’s agreed to drive my mother and me up there – to the spot near where the old still worried the children when Mom was little. We cleared the fence posts with about an inch on either side of the pickup, going about thirty miles per hour, through the fields and woods where if I’d stuck out my hand just past the side view mirrors, I wouldn’t have a hand as we whipped by. The wooded lot was on top of a hill, twined with poison ivy, “and keep an eye out for rattlers.”

4. Concord Quaker Cemetery near Colrain, Ohio, where numerous relatives and ancestors of mine are buried, including Josiah Fox, designer of the U.S.S. Constitution, and Julia Berry, who was born around the Civil War, but has an unmarked death date on her gravestone. Julia never married and was buried with other Berry relatives, under a very huge now and messy berry tree.

When our boys were young, Jeff and I took them here. Jeff was quiet and respectful, especially of seeing Josiah’s grave. The boys, on the other hand, were a little restless. There’s only so much of interest in a cemetery to little kids, after all. I pointed out that since Julia didn’t have a death date, she might still be alive at well over 100 years old. We then started joking around (not something I’d recommend in a cemetery), saying, “Juu-l-ia? Oh, Juu-l-ia? Where are you, Julia?” When suddenly the cemetery metal gate swung wide open. There was no breeze. Not in the least. The three of us scurried (quite disrespectfully) over the graves of the dead to reach the safety of Daddy-Hubby Jeff.

This cemetery also holds the unmarked graves of many runaway slaves, who had made it to the safety of the Ohio Quakers, only to die of sickness. I always say a prayer over them when I go there.

3. Mount Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood, SD, where sheriff Seth Bullock, Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried. There is also the Chinese section with a stone oven. Not only is this cemetery a historic wild west resting place, but just getting to the cemetery is an adventure – driving up a nearly vertical road, then climbing up and up and up through the cemetery to reach the highest grave, that of Seth Bullock.

2. Author’s Row in the Concord, MA, Cemetery, where the likes of well-known authors have been laid to rest, like Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorn and Henry David Thoreau.

1. I realize there are numerous European cemeteries, like within the walls and floors of Westminster Cathedral, or under St. Martin’s on Trafalgar Square in London where you can eat lunch in their basement overtop of tombstones. Both very cool. But I made Jeff take me on a cemetery side trip not far from our hotel: Highgate. There is a wide paved path going through the center, but it’s the off-the-beaten-path ones I *liked* the best. The gravestones in these areas are generally overgrown. But more. You may even happen across statues of stone angels, who, if you blink, you’d swear they moved a step closer to you.  (If you know the answer to this spine-chilling-as-I-write-it reason, please dare to comment below.)

So where is your *favorite* cemetery or cemetery experience? Have you buried any of your characters in a similar place?