I think my camera has been blessed

[kayre]

For my first actual photography excursion, I decided on a cemetery visit-- better walking in the muddy early part of spring. Map study led me to an early Jewish cemetery near the Port of Albany. It is in an area that's now a run-down industrial zone. There's no road or pull-off, so I parked along the fence of the business across the street. As I took my first pictures, I heard a call, and saw a woman walking across from the business. I was afraid either she wanted me to leave the cemetery or at least move my car-- but it turned out she was just excited to see someone else interested in the cemetery! So I had a companion while I explored! She was delightful and fascinating, and we chatted about a wide range of topics as we poked around.



One of the older stones, date of death 1880. There were older ones, I think the oldest I found was Died 1846.





I was a bit surprised to find Masons in a Jewish cemetery, but a bit of poking online tells me it wasn't so uncommon.



Another Mason.



I don't know how common the name Rothschild was, or if this is a connection to the European family.



I was feeling surprised at not seeing the tiny stones commonly used for very young children; ultimately realized that in this cemetery they were using slightly larger, more elaborate stones even for babies.

Comments

[amaebi]

Nice!

[gingicat]

Looks like the top one is Gronam ben Shlomo, which makes me think of the Chelm stories.

[silkensteel]

Ah, I thought that first letter was a Lamed, not a Gimel, and mistook the mem-sofit for a samech, which would have made it "Lawrence Ben Shlomo" which baffled me. Your reading makes more sense. :)

Also: Uncle Felix was a Mason (a cousin not an uncle, but still an Uncle.)

Also also - stones like lopped off tree trunks, or truncated trees engraved on stones were a common Jewish theme in the US for a life cut short. (The Kennedy memorial in Israel is a stylized tree stump made of 50 concrete pillars, each one has a state seal of each of the 50 states.)

[gingicat]

Looking at it again, the middle word seems to be Bar not Ben, which I guess would be an older construction.

I’m not 100% certain that the first letter is a Gimel, but based on the rest of the letters, it doesn’t seem like the ascender of a Lamed would have been lost.