I’ve been documenting graveshelters for a few years now, and there have been ones you literally can’t get to from here (private roads), others that were functional apiaries, some that have obviously been homes to other kinds of wildlife, and this one was — well, another you can’t get to from here, actually. It was gated off because the area around it serves as a cow pasture.
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It’s Peck Cemetery in Falkville, Alabama. I got the directions from FindAGrave (where there’s another pic of the grave shelters) so I could drive out this past winter. I did manage to get the phone number for the landowner, so I’ll call him sometime soon to ask for permission to go right up to it, but thanks to satellites…under that nice big tree, you can see — and a little tiny bit in the pic above — two nice graveshelters for a married couple:
John (the wonderful person who did the FindAGrave entry even included the local paper mention for them both: “He was the leading citizen of his vicinity in the respective walks of life.”) and Elizabeth Brown (“She has been a consistent member of the Methodist Church for eight years. She died leaving every evidence that her future was safe.”), who died in 1889 and 1890.
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The other one I visited the same month was at Prudes Creek Cemetery in Adger, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. It’s for Martha and W.R. Gwin (and there are a *lot* of Gwins in this cemetery).
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Martha A. Gwin, March 14, 1852 – December 1932
W. R. Gwin, March 12, 1848 – November 10, 1946
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This is a great cemetery. There’s a man nicknamed “Litebread” with a son nicknamed “Cornbread“. And behind this grave shelter, there’s this curious, wonderful design on a monument for Earley H. Gwin, who was born in 1899 and died in 1917:
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