Grave Yards in the Pines

    Today is Cinco de Mayo 2012.  Just know it is getting ever so popular year after year in the U.S.A.  It also is the day for the "Super Moon"  what ever that is.  I am getting tired and I don't like going outside in the dark with my camera and tripod equipment.  Also, I was assured later that the cloud cover was just too heavy to allow visibility of the Moon. However, yesterday it was warm and the moon was out early in the evening so I got a shot of the nearly full moon:

     So probably around last August my friend and I took a tour of some South Jersey Pineland cemeteries. I already discussed my family's Pinelands heritage but it was such a testament to see the proof that years ago there weren't so many people of Italian heritage around. Going back a little over a hundred years ago it was when you had a large influx of Italians into this area so you weren't going to find graves for them just yet. So these old grave yards have names (just a random sampling of the common names) like: Sooy, Leeds, Weeks, Ford, Wells, Maxwell, Crowley, Birdsall, Scull, Cramer, VanSant, Wescoat, Micks, Jervis, Bowman, Cavileer, Cobb, Camp, Craig, Nichols, Gaskill, and Pool. So when you see any Italian names in these old cemeteries, it is quite noticeable. You soon start to see names like Maratella, Martelli, LoSasso, and Silipena. My grandfather's Tassone's stone won't be found in the Pineland Cemeteries because he was buried in the Oak Grove Cemetery in Hammonton.

    This stone below shows a Martelli must have taken a Ford for a wife.  Funny I have a sister Betty Ford.  Her husband is only half Italian in his heritage.