Every once in awhile I find something interesting going on in my hometown of Springfield, IL – whether it be a local event, local flavor or a local view. Each week I’ll bringing a piece of my life to the online world in a series called Let’s Get Local. I encourage anyone and everyone to join in and share a little bit of their own local flair to introduce us to people and places we may never visit.

My drive from Chatham, IL to Springfield, IL leaves me with 3 options: a back woods road, a highway and another highway. Often I choose the first highway because it’s the most direct route to my parents house and the west side shopping centers. As I travel down the small stretch of 8 miles or so on either side of the highway are two small cemeteries. If you weren’t paying attention you’d probably never notice them. Nestled in the adjacent woods, from the car you can see a weathered white fence with overgrown weeds creeping through the boards.

My husband calls me morbid, I call it curious. Who are these people? Why does no one care for their burial grounds? How long have they been there? What were their lives like? All questions that burn at my mind every time I pass by. I still have no answers but I did satisfy my curiosity by stopping at the cemetery this past week to investigate.

photos taken with Casio EX-S12SR

Many of the headstones are unreadable, engraving corroded away by time and weather. Of the few that were still standing upright I was able to find some names and dates of the deceased.

Among the graves there were no signs of any visitors…no fresh flowers, no silk flowers, nothing but overgrowth of nature taking back what once came from the earth. Along side each grave were little white daisies. It leaves me to wonder if anyone cared for these men and women but the earth itself, leaving little signs of love and peace with the tiniest of flowers.

I still don’t who these people were, how the lived or even if the cemetery was given a proper name, but I feel that some of my curiosity is satisfied and can look upon their eternal home with a smile now as I pass them each day, silently whispering a prayer for their peace and happiness.