SAINT CLAIR - Every gravestone tells a story.
This was the theme Wednesday night during the "Cemeteries as Classrooms" event at the Saint Clair Community and Historical Society, 24 N. Nicholas St.
About 25 people attended the nearly two-hour presentation given by Deborah Reed, Schuylkill Haven, and Rosemary Chamberlain, Pine Grove, both former librarians in the Pine Grove Area School District.
"It's interesting to see the stories behind the people and how they're remembered and not remembered," Reed said.
Reed put the presentation together when she was a librarian to suggest field trips for teachers when funding wasn't available. The cemetery field trips could cover nearly any subject, including art, language arts, science, social studies, sociology, mathematics and genealogy.
Some examples that Reed gave included an art class learning about stone carvings, the types of sculptural art and symbolism; science classes learning about the biology, ecology and mineralogy in a cemetery and a sociology class learning about burial customs and the changing view of death and burials.
Reed, who called herself a "taphophile," or "someone who loves cemeteries," said while she isn't an expert on cemeteries, her interest began when she was a first-grader bringing flowers to school on Veterans Day for veterans' graves. It inspired her later in life to do research on cemeteries and tombstones.
During the presentation, Reed aimed to explain why tombstones were made out of certain materials, why they are shaped the way they are and to help people discover some hidden meanings. She showed pictures of cemeteries and gravestones from Schuylkill County and beyond.
Reed said many older tombstones that are now nearly unreadable were made of either marble or sandstone because they were easy to carve; however, they were not good materials to withstand the elements.
Using some examples from Pottsville's Charles Baber Cemetery, Reed showed how the size of a tombstone depended on the wealth or importance of the individual.
One such tombstone marks the grave of a member of the Yuengling family. It has stairs and is surrounded by a fence, which gives a sense of property and keeps the dead safe.
Tombstones can also have hidden meanings, such as one that looks like cut logs meaning "a life cut short," one shaped like a bed meaning "forever sleep" or one with a spilled basket of flowers meaning "beauty cut short."
"Cemeteries are places of great beauty," Reed said.
At the end of the presentation, Reed encouraged people to study cemeteries. However, she discouraged grave rubbings since it could cause damage to the stone. When cleaning gravestones, a person should only use water and a soft brush since older stones could easily sustain damage.
Reed also suggested that if more children learn about cemeteries and gravestones, less vandalism might occur.
"It's a part of our heritage," Reed said. "We should be teaching our children about cemeteries and to pay tribute."