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What were your sources for the two quotes given in connection with the account of May Whiting’s grave?

ECO

I am wondering how you might be related to Oscar Juan Whiting. May Whiting was the great, great aunt of Oscar Juan Whiting. Oscar Juan Whiting is my husbands grandfather. He went on the excursion you spoke of in the account to visit May’s grave when he was 12 years old. He remembered this experience very well and took his own children (my mother-in-law) back to also visit.

Julie Adair Doman
(married to Clay Whiting Doman)

Here is the fantatsic twist to the story… George Washington Adair, mentioned in May Whiting’s story above, is my relative! What a joy to read and find not only more information about my husband’s Aunt May, but that the nephew of my 4th great grandfather helped the Whiting family before and after May’s death.

A member of my ward and his wife served as senior missionaries at the Winter Quarters/Council Bluffs temple visitors center while it was being constructed, and as a retired architect, was given some extra responsibilities, which included dragging a sled with ground-penetrating radar through the cemetery there, trying to locate some lost graves that were not well recorded in the records there. It’s an interesting story I should get him to write down.

I don’t have a strong belief in communicating with the departed at the gravesite, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t find the experience to be spiritually and personally significant, either. I think that visiting a cemetery/grave is an uplifting experience because it combines some element of mental, spiritual and physical effort. As the post pointed out, we don’t really believe that grandpa is there, in the ground, but we are physically remembering the deceased. There’s an element of sacrifice that makes the visit meaningful.

Moreover, there’s a physical element to it, too. Walking to a grave, getting in a car, sometimes searching on a map to find a grave — all of these things involve some physical exertion and heighten the experience. Last, remembering loved ones at the place of their final resting spot, does something to cement familial bonds, as well as give perspective that, well, we’re all going to die someday, too. It’s sobering in a meaningful and uplifting way.

We’ve taken our kids to visit several cemeteries and it’s usually been a very good experience, even if we have to sometimes remind them not to run around like a bunch of monkies. I think it does even the little ones a service to know that, sometimes, there are times and places in this world where our sense of connection to those that went before requires a little sobriety and quiet.

As for taking photos, as you once pointed out, Ardis, pictures taken at graves look like a family portrait with the stone standing in for the missing family member.