Our First Adventure at Spring Grove Cemetery

During my first adventure at Spring Grove I was able to pair up with a long time friend from Nursing school so, I was pretty excited. I must say when we set out to our destination I had no idea what to expect and I was a little unsure how to feel about it. My great grandparents are buried in one of the Mausoleum's at Spring Grove and I knew it was a beautiful cemetery but, I really had not taken the time to walk around and look at other memorials and burial stones. Kelly and I were able to see all kinds of different stones and really take the time to analyze each one we came across. There were several really important people we had set out to find and it was exciting when we finally found them to read about them and realize we were standing where someone great had been buried. We came across The Harrison's, The Drake's and the McGuffey's. I later researched some very interesting stories about these families. I found out about Dr. Drake who had made a huge impact on our city becoming a well known physician and writer who even founded the Medical College of Ohio and Alexander McGuffey who had been a co-writer of the McGuffey readers, some of the best known educational school books in American History during the 19th century.We came across some very interesting designs on the stones, some of which we only saw once and some of which we saw many times over. It was the very first time I had walked around and taken the time to not only look at other's burial stones but, actually take the time to wonder why things were the way they were. We spent time looking at the big memorials where entire families were buried inside and it gave us an almost eerie feeling to look inside the cold tombs and see the many names written inside. It was amazing to me to see all the stones and how they were literally in every nook and cranny. The majority of them seemed as if they had been kept up but, others were almost lost under the overgrown grass and dirt. At times I felt at peace looking through all the beautiful stones and other times I had a cold shiver come over me. It was certainly a very interesting experience and one I am grateful for because it started me on a journey to looking further into what a cemetery is all about and not just the scary appeal we grew up believing in.