October Meeting

October 14, 2006

Topic: Remember Me

Speaker: Susan Galligan

1:30 p.m. John Curtis Free Library, Rt. 139, 534 Hanover Street, Hanover, MA (781) 826-2927

"All that tread the globe are but a handful to the tribes that slumber in its bosom" - Wm. Cullen Bryant 1821

A gravestone can be viewed as a unique art form. It's purpose is to commemorate a loved one's life, and to express our desire to be remembered. From colonial times to the present, American grave markers reflect changes in our culture and shifts in our religious sentiments. Even technological advances are apparent in the cemetery.

Through lecture, slides and gravestone rubbings, Susan's program, "Remember Me," will present the evolution of New England gravestone design, as well as the messages left behind to be read by "all ye who pass by." She will also include a discussion of pet memorials, and a series of rare and unusual markers - some found right here in Hanover.

A Q&A session will follow her talk, and she invites everyone to share any information of notable gravestones or cemeteries.

Susan sent a pic of one of her favorite gravestone carvings to illustrate. It can be found in South Side Cemetery, York, ME.

Susan Galligan has lived in New England all her life. Her childhood interest in old burial grounds has grown into a life long study of memorialization, including the history of mourning customs. She has been both a speaker and a teacher on those subjects, and has conducted cemetery tours and gravestone rubbing workshops. She is a trustee of the N. Attleboro Historical Society and that town's Mount Hope Cemetery. She is also a member and former trustee of the Association for Gravestone Studies. Her booklet "Voices of the Woodcock Burial Ground" is on file as a reference at the town library, and copies are sold through the Historical Society.

She has lectured at the Heritage Plantation in Sandwich, the Plymouth Antiquarian Society, and at the National Trust for Historic Preservation convention in Boston. And she is very pleased to be invited back to speak to the South Shore Genealogical Society.