Remembered Forever

The Friends of Lansing's Historic Cemeteries is hosting it's 19th Annual Geranium Giveaway Saturday, May 16th from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. or until the 100 free seed geraniums are gone.

They will be outside of the Cemetery Courtesy Office located at 1709 East Mt. Hope Ave., directly across from Mount Hope Cemetery.

Due to ongoing road construction the best approach is to turn on to Mt. Hope Avenue from Aurelius Rd.

Families may have up to 4 free seed geraniums to plant on loved ones grave sites in the 3 city-owned cemeteries - Evergreen, Mt. Hope and North.

This service project is made possible by FOLHC membership dues, donations and fundraisers. To help support this and other FOLHC activities, please see their website at LansingCemFriends.org or their page at LansingCemeteries.

The Friends are a 501-c-3 non-profit formed in 2007 to "protect, promote and prosper" Lansing's three city-owned cemeteries. They also operate the volunteer staffed Cemetery Courtesy Office across from Mt. Hope Cemetery.

Can you give us a hand? We need volunteers for Monday afternoons from noon to 4:00 p.m. and for Friday afternoons from noon to 4:00 p.m. at the Cemetery Courtesy Office.

Do you love exploring cemeteries? Learning local history? Researching genealogy? Organizing and filing records? Any or all of these qualify you to serve the public!

We need volunteers at the Cemetery Courtesy Office located at 1709 East Mount Hope Avenue, directly across from Mount Hope Cemetery.

Volunteers answer phone calls, help people locate graves they can't find, help people decide which gravesite or cremation site to purchase, and act as ambassadors for the three city-owned cemeteries: Evergreen, Mt. Hope and North. They keep records and search records for requested information.

Training is provided and no supplies or equipment are needed. Immediate starts available! Training is at the Cemetery Courtesy Office.

We have openings for Monday and Friday afternoons from noon to 4:00 p.m. If you can do this, please call Loretta at 517-648-5730.

In Detroit, high school students are volunteering to serve as pallbearers at the funerals of homeless veterans who have no family to honor them.

This initiative, called the Pallbearer Ministry, began in 2015 when a group of six seniors from the University of Detroit Jesuit High School decided to step in and offer a dignified farewell to veterans who passed away alone.

Since then, the program has grown, and over 50 students have been trained to assist at these services. Each student learns about the life and military service of the veteran before the funeral, which helps them connect more deeply with the person they are honoring.

By participating, the students provide a final act of respect for those who served the country but had no family to carry their casket. The experience is not only a way to show respect to the deceased but also offers the students valuable lessons in empathy, dignity, and community service.

The program has become an important reminder that every life has worth, and that even those who may have been forgotten by society deserve to be treated with dignity in their final moments. Through their involvement, the students are learning to reflect on the significance of service and the impact they can make on others, particularly those who are marginalized.

This small act of kindness highlights the value of community and the importance of standing together to support those in need.

The U.S. has witnessed its first burial using a mushroom coffin, a biodegradable casket made of mycelium, the root structure of fungi. These coffins break down naturally and absorb body toxins, returning the body to the soil in a clean, eco-friendly way.

Mycelium grows around an organic frame and biodegrades in 30 to 45 days after burial. It’s part of the emerging green burial movement, aiming to replace traditional caskets and chemical embalming.

This new form of burial offers a sustainable, regenerative return to the Earth, aligning life, death, and ecology.

Midnight stop.

I thought they were fake at first. So cool!

Lova Cline was born with a body crippling illness in 1902 and at the time nobody knew what to do to help her. Her biggest pleasure was looking into a five foot high dollhouse with large windows but she could never move around to actually play with it herself. She tragically passed away in 1908 and there are mixed reports but her father either had the dollhouse moved to her grave or built a new one over it. When her parents died in the mid 1940’s they were buried somewhere else so her burial site was later moved to be next to her parents and the locals have preserved the dollhouse and make sure it continues to stand. There are multiple reports of it being haunted because people have said they’ve seen it glowing even though there are no lights and the doll furniture has been moved around as if someone has been playing with it even though there are no doors and no way to access the toys inside. This grave is in a small town in Indiana not far from Indianapolis and if you’re in the area is worth checking out. There’s another very similar dollhouse grave not far from this one that I’ll be covering in a future video. . . . . . . . . . . #lovacline #dollhouse #dollhousegrave #grave #gravestone #graveyards #cemeteriesofinstagram #cemeteries #cemetery_shots #uniquegraves #history #rushvilleindiana #indiana #atlasobscura #roadsideamerica #indianapolisindiana #smalltownindiana #adele #haunted #fathersday #haunting #travel #travelvlog #travelnow #travelvibes #explore #explorer #exploretheglobe #neverstoplearning #neverstopexploring

At least I’m not out in the cemetery by myself…. Just not sure I’m loving the rain as much as they are.