Hi Folks,
Last evening my cousin, Mom-in-law and I went to the old cemetery I
mentioned in an earlier message. It does have a name, so I am assuming
that there are records of it at the Library. The sign at the entrance has
Notestine Cemetery 1834. It is not as brambled as I concluded as I drove
(hundreds of times) past it. Lorelle and Mom wrote down the names and as
many inscriptions as we could read with the aid of shaving cream. Someone
took baling wire and fastened one or two headstones that had broken. Other
headstones had been repaired with some kind of 'cement'.
Before we left we noticed a fence that had many "same colored rocks" lining
the fence. I walked over to the fence and saw that these rocks were
actually broken headstones. Does anyone do "rock jig-saw puzzles"? The
one borders of the cemetery are the St. Joe River, St. Joe Rd. and a
farmers field. A man was watching us and I asked if he had any relatives
in the cemetery. He said he did not.
This cemetery is north, within a mile, of the Notestine Rd, Allen County,
north of St. Joe Township, on the left side of the road.
Question: The earliest date on one stone was 1796, this marker was easily
read with SC/Squeegee. Another, made from a very white stone, was very
weathered. From a distance it looked like a candle that had been burning
for a long time. The application of SC did not help efforts to read the
engraving, in fact, it made it more difficult. Has anyone tried to
photograph any headstones, had the film developed, and then tried to scan
the negatives (not the developed picture) to see if the engraving would
come through?
I have seen many programs on "The Shroud of Turin" and when someone saw the
negatives of the shroud, they were able to see the image. Although, in
this case, the negative would be smaller than a print, the scanning would
allow us to enlarge the frame...perhaps allowing more detail to be seen.
Maybe.
I may have barked up the wrong tree in my first attempt, but I learned a
lot just doing it.
Kay