Tagged With: Graveyard

St. Rose of Lima

St. Rose of Lima

St. Rose of Lima

I had a dentist appointment today so I was up north of Gaithersburg this morning. After I was done there, I cut trough the woods on Game Preserve Road to Clopper Road. I stopped briefly at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church and took some photos in their graveyard, including this one of cross shaped markers seen here against the white of the church building. This is the older part of the graveyard and includes members of the Clopper family, after whom the road was named. This road, although not in West Virginia, is reputed to be the inspiration for Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert who wrote Take Me Home, Country Roads and then finished it with John Denver, who recorded it in 1971.

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Rockville Cemetery

Rockville Cemetery

Rockville Cemetery

I stopped at Rockville Cemetery on the way home today. With the weather turning warmer (relatively) and the sun out, it’s very tempting to be outdoors as much as possible. My job, of course, keeps me inside most of the time and it’s been fairly busy lately, with lots of revisions and bug fixes. That’s meant that I haven’t been out during the day too often. With the time change it’s light later in the day and that gives me more of a chance to get out after work.

Rockville Cemetery, on Old Baltimore Road, is a nice, relatively quiet place. The eponym of my high school alma mater is buried there. The graves of Walter Johnson and his wife Hazel are in a very shady spot under a pair of mature spruce trees. Generally it’s hard to get a good picture of them because it’s so shady but when I was there today the sun was slanting under the trees’ lower branches and lighting up the grave markers. This photo is from another part of the cemetery, though. I really love big, old, white oaks (Quercus alba) and this is a nice specimen.

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Saint Mary’s Church and Graveyard

Saint Mary's Church and Graveyard

Saint Mary’s Church and Graveyard

We had some free time this afternoon so we drove to downtown Rockville and wondered around the St. Mary’s Church graveyard for a while. I took a picture of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald’s grave marker (and their daughter, Francis Scott Fitzgerald Smith). It’s a pretty little graveyard, if you like that sort of thing. We do. I took some pictures of the church reflected in the mostly glass building at Jefferson Plaza across the pike. I also took some general views of the graveyard. I figured for my post, however, I’d use this one, showing both the older church building—now known as the Chapel of Our Lady—and the new domed building, dating from the 1960s. The parish was established in 1813 with the land being bought for $300 and the initial church building costing about $4,000. It has obviously seen a few changes over the years. The old church building was scheduled for demolition but was saved and became the chapel that it is today. I’m glad it was saved, as it’s a pretty, little church.

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