2010-07-03

Burial traditions

Walking through Vindeln cemetery I found the headstones rather spooky as they often had a still-living spouse’s name already engraved, just waiting for the final date to be added:

Herman Holmlund, his wife Anna

Unfamiliar to me was also the custom of carefully mentioning the home parish of the dead. I wondered in confusion if the family dog had been buried in the same grave, but of course Rambo was where they (had) lived:

Lindberg family from Rambo

Particularly sobering was the mass grave for Finnish infants evacuated from Rovaniemi. We searched the church; there were lots of leaflets in several languages on the history and architecture of the church but no information on the refugees and how they had come there.

27 buried refugees

4 comments:

Martin said...

Any idea what killed the kids after they were evacuated?

kai said...

Diphteria, according to Finska krigsbarn.

According to Tiedon Värikas Maailma, 1943–46 saw the last outbreak of epidemic diphteria in Finland, after that mass vaccination extinguished the disease.

OBD said...

Jag förstår inte hur Emilia kan stå före sin make fast han dog 50 år före henne...

kai said...

Min gissning, utgående från dess fräscha skick, är att stenen tillkommit i samband med sonens begravning, möjligen ersättande en tidigare sten med namnen i omvänd ordning.