Although it’s not one of the famous mausoleums, or the final resting place of someone famous I found myself strangely drawn to this small monument.

The extract below (from a post entitled Our Bell by Neil J Murphy on Talking Pictures) pretty much sums up my own views.

I think the creepiest memorials in any cemetery, without fail, are the ones for children. Take for example, ‘Our Bell’ (which I first mistook for ‘Our Bill’, given the angle of the sunlight on the eroded relief) in the Lake section of New York’s Woodlawn Cemetery.

Her stone stands alone, with no obvious connection to the surrounding plots. There are no dates, no family name, just the carving of an Alice-in-Wonderland figure of a little girl standing under an arch, her right hand resting on the top of her hoop skirt, her features worn away by time and weather. She looks as if she could have stepped out of a Seurat painting; you can almost see the parasol in her left hand, just the other side of the stone.

Really though, I think she looks for whoever left her here.

The only thing I’d disagree with is the use of the word ‘creepy’. I don’t find child graves any more creepy than any other graves. They just make me feel very sad: that a life was cut short before it really had a chance to get going. Usually when I’m in a cemetery I’m focused more on the architecture, statuary, flora, peace, tranquility etc. than I am on thoughts of death. Child graves are an exception. You can’t see one without thinking about mortality.

As the author of the extract above indicates, this monument seems to be all by itself, not connected to anything around it. And it’s anonymous, with no indication of who “Our Bell” was. This sense of isolation and ‘disconnectedness’ is only emphasized by the erosion of the stone, particularly of the face. This to me only adds to the sense of sadness (even loneliness) that I feel when I come across one of these graves.

Another child grave that had a big impact on me can be seen in Sad Photo.