Oakland Cemetery is located in Terrel Texas. About an hour or so trip from my home. I had never been to oakland cemetery. Let me tell you when i got there i was in no way disappointed. Oakland cemetery though in a southern cemetery is Victorian to its roots and reminds me of an English cemetery with the moss and lichen covering the old stones. I am so in love with the melancholy beauty of this cemetery. This cemetery moves me in more way than one, the angels, the atmosphere, just everything.
The first thing you see when you walk in is this angel below.
Not far from this angel are two others Angels the woman on the cross motif and a angel for a child hands clasped in prayer.
As you proceed on into the cemetery there is a lot of visual stimuli. Iwas overwhelmed as it is seeing this much cemetery goodness in one sweep of the eyes.
Things like this---
Proceeding farther on I spot more statues. yes we have statues at home but not so many in one place.
I see this angel small but wonderful. i love the green moss and how it seems to call to memory all the English cemeteries covered in the green moss from the dampness!! But wait there's more. idly walking I have been wanting to secretly find the Greek male statue I have seen on Facebook on a cemetery page. Lo Behold there he stood. Albeit naked but there he is, but tastefully covered with a fig leaf . Just behind the bushes this angel stands in front of. A wonder to behold.
In the same square cemetery block resides the woman walking away form the cross, I have one other variation at West Hill in Sherman Texas. i love this one. The draping on the bottom of her dress is wonderful.
As i crossed a rock gravel road I hit the mother load of angels. Three of them. one pointing up, one knelling and the other a Bronze relief of a weeping angel. All beautiful. Below the weeping angel was a Palm frond that had turned a florescent green due to the cooper reactivity to rain. a lovely effect.
Trailing on from here i am nearly to the newer part of the cemetery, a place i dont often find myself. I feel at home in the old part always. Still a lot to behold .From here I walk past a " plot of 20 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, all airmen who
died while training in Texas at the Basic Flying Training School (1
BFTS). (source -http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&CRid=5680)
After seeing this 20 burials I hook a sharp left and see a few more old stones, some obelisks with crosses like i have never seen. after these I stand at the gate containing an angel who looks to be scribing upon a book of sorts , an male too. I hardly come upon male angels, though i know they exist in the bible I have never seen one in sepulchral art.
The Plot I am standing in I realize Says last name Carter. That is all I caught. i was too enamored with the angel and old iron work of the fence.
Moving on from the Carter plot i find something else I made a mental note to find, having also seen it on Facebook. The Laroe grave house. I have heard of these but never actually seen one. A grave house covers stones, its akin to a tabernacle. Sometimes they can be a whole house. For more info on Grave houses Click here
http://www.redbubble.com/people/harrietrn/journal/1283341-grave-houses
They can be found in other states besides Texas.
After finishing the Grave house I headed towards the front to my last and final stop, the statue of a man who had served in the Civil War. A Mr.
John Summerfield Griffith ( Click here for his
Find a Grave) He was called General John S. Griffith. Another impressive male statue, a rarity truthfully for me. A majoirty of cemetery statues are female. I have seen more female than male.
From here I finished up and found a Zinc monument, two really and got one last wonderful picture of that wonderful angel with wings unfurled. All in all i will be going back to his cemetery. I loved it. I highly recommend.
And finally that wonderful angel.
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