Ruth's Riveting Tales

Hello bloggers!

Since the last time we have spoken, my class had was visited by Ruth Miller who gave an hour long lecture on the tales of Charleston's cemeteries.

Ruth Miller

Ruth Miller is originally from New England (which is also home to many old graveyards) but is now a resident of the Charleston area. She is a historian and is now a private tour guide of Charleston. Along with being a tour guide, Miller has also written several books on the historic graveyards.

She began her lecture by informing the class that Charleston was richer than New York today in 1776 and was almost as big as Boston. This fact is a representation of how sought out Charleston was, even from the very beginning. 

In my opinion, one of the most interesting facts that she told us about, was the history of how much grave moving there was in our area. When building the library and a near by parish, the grave-markers were moved, however they left the bodies to be built over and forgotten about. Miller had said that it was not uncommon to shuffle around grave-markers in order to make room for more or a new building entirely.

I find it fascinating that many of the grave-markers in our historic cemeteries may not even belong to the body that is buried below, if there even is one.

Another very interesting thing that Miller not only told about, but actually showed us, was the mourning jewelry that was used in the past.

A child posed for a picture, post death

Pictured above is a piece of mourning jewelry. It is a pin that has the photo of a child on it. The most interesting part of this pin is that the child was posed for this picture after they had already passed away. It was more common to do this because photography was not as popular and accessible as it now, so if there was an unexpected death, it is unlikely that the family had a photo of the loved one who had passed.

Along with just a photo of the deceased loved one, many families would also have bracelets made out of the hair of those who have died.

Bracelet made of hair, top right

Mourning jewelry was once a very important part of the death process. Along with the jewelry, it was also much more important to people of the past to pick out a grave-marker that represented those who passed away. Grave-markers once meant more than they do in today's society. Due to the fact that grave-markers used to be very detailed and often listed how the person died, Miller pointed out that it is very easy to see when and where disease epidemics were relevant.

Ruth Miller gave my class a very interesting lecture. We learned about more than just graves but also just the history of Charleston.