Another historically-black cemetery

Today's excursion takes us up to the little Seminole County town of Geneva, where ye rabbits may find the Stewart Memorial Gardens at the corner of West Osceola Road and Little Fawn Road.

I wouldn't say it's been neglected, but it certainly has a less-than-welcoming sign at its entrance. A bit off-putting, no?

Anyway, as the name implies, this burial ground was established by Charley Stewart (not the perennial Congressional candidate) back in 1921. That was the year his father, Charley, Sr., a Jamaican emigrant, died.

I didn't find the Stewart family plot, but did find this moldy old stone belonging to one Eddie Demps (9 March 1885 - 2 Dec 1941).

Mold seems to be as big an issue here as it is in the not-so-distant Drawdy-Rouse Cemetery we visited in a previous post.

I still haven't received a completely-satisfactory solution (pun intended) for cleaning mold off old tombstones.

Anyway, if you can zoom-in on the image of Mr. Demps' stone, you'll see why it caught my eye. It looks like his name and vital dates were hand-carved. What do you think?

A bird's eye view for ye rabbits

Yours truly created a Google Map of all the hopping grounds already mentioned in this blog, and will commit to updating it on a weekly basis.

Happy Hallowe'en, everyone!

View Larger Map

Haunted only by mold

Today, we visit a tidy little burial ground tucked into the woods just a few blocks north of the bustling intersection of University Boulevard on Rouse Road.

As the entrance marker says, the Drawdy and Rouse families established the cemetery back in 1871.

There is, however, a local legend that the cemetery is haunted by a not-so-charming fellow named Benjamin Miles, who was buried here in an umarked grave back in the 1840s.

Now, I'm not saying there is no basis for the legend, only that I haven't seen any documentary evidence of anyone by that name in the early records.

What I can tell you rabbits, however, is the older stones in this cemetery are plagued by mold.

This renders them not only unsightly, but also illegible--the latter condition being quite bothersome to those of us of a genealogical bent.

So, I am soliciting advice.

Is the solution (pun intended) a 50/50 blend of water and bleach?

I know you have to be careful with newer granite or bronze memorials. But what about older ones like the one pictured here?