I took a walk through St. Johns Church Cemetery, off of Trindle and St. Johns Roads in Mechanicsburg, this morning. I drive by it every day on the way to taking the kids to school/summer program, so today I took a look around.
It's an old cemetery, the oldest headstone I could spot was for a lady buried in 1845. It is a very confined cemetery, surrounded by roads and apartments and office buildings and what looks to be a preschool. There's still some nice area there to be buried, but not many folks are being buried there right now - not sure why.
One thing I noticed was that although most of the older "residents" had pretty worn headstones, every once in a while I'd see a headstone that looked relatively new for people that have been dead for 70-80 years. I don't *think* the stone was so impervious to nature that it didn't wear - it looks to me like folks "upgrade" headstones. I can see why, if family tends to be buried in one cemetery - some of the headstones aren't even readable at this point, and many other, relatively hefty stone tablets are losing readability. Of course, it isn't cheap to buy a large headstone with a lot of lettering... but if a cemetery is considered by one's family as "the family resting spot", I could see why people pay for the upgrade.
I wonder if the wooden headstone is still there. Last time I saw it all was in 1980; someone had been maintaining and repainting the wooden marker for at least as long as I'd known the place.
Does the pump in the photo still work?
I didn't try the pump, so I couldn't tell you. But it *looks* like it's still intended to work.
Oh -- you remember posting about a cell-phone tower proposed for a park in Paxtang? Well, it's the adjoining grounds.