North Cemetery Sign

North Cemetery Sign, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

North Cemetery, Town of Wayland, MA. Land used to be in Sudbury, MA.

Up ahead we could see just the front of the cemetery and my husband, Steve, quickly turned up the side road and into the cemetery.

He sat in the car while I got out with my camera to explore and photograph the front near the road. This is often a neglected part of the gravestone hunter's adventure, probably because of the excitement of finding an ancestor's grave. I like doing this part first to get a feel for what the cemetery is like. I have had to return to cemeteries later because I missed this important part of the investigation.

I knew that there was a sign but it is NOT the sign that is at the Find-a-Grave site, It must have been recently replaced to be more easily seen from the road. [North Cemetery, Wayland at Find-a-Grave] The photos at Find A Grave were taken in 2009. I enjoyed the plantings around the sign. Did you notice them?

Just so you know, there are a LOT of cemeteries in Massachusetts named North Cemetery! This one is in Middlesex county in the town of Wayland. When Deacon Edmund Rice was buried here, this cemetery was part of Sudbury. Confusing, right?

Notice the vault below the sign. [better photo] It may not be in use any longer. Because of the frozen ground, burials were not performed in the winter until just a few years ago when new equipment became available for rent by town to dig in the winter.