Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Caged Gracie

this is a life-like statue of grace sherwood allen. she died before turning 5 years old, of the whooping cough (an awful bacterial infection still affecting nearly 50 million people each year, killing nearly 300,000), in 1880. the statue is made of marble, by sidney h morse. without the glass vitrine, it would not have been white like this, being exposed to harsh winters and hot summers for over 100 years. it would have been greenish from algae and what not, like all the other stones and statues. but.. to me it was a little eerie. poor little gracie. caged forever. even worse; during winter this glass cage is covered by a metal one to further protect this "historical object" that it now became.
this is at the forest hills cemetery, of which i showed you pictures earlier. early march, the trees were still bare and the grass was yellowish (normally covered by snow, or just recovering from snow during that time of the year). we had visitors this weekend (from texas), and they themselves wanted to see a cemetery! jeejjj! so we drove to this one, as i have decided it probably is the most beautiful/interesting cemetery in boston. had it been beautiful last time, it was even more amazing this saturday, with the grass so green and blossom trees full in bloom. that time i sort of searched for gracie, but could not find her. we did see some metal thing that we joked could be a rocket of some sort; she then was still caged! and we just had walked around and around and had no clue that gracie was patiently standing underneath. poor little girl. 
her dress is very pretty, also from the back, but i now see i did not really take pictures of that side..... next time, as we will surely return to see how this cemetery looks like in summer.... (if i have the patience to wait till summer).
for more taphophilia, go here..., and here are some more pics of little gracie.