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Cemetery Tour Publicity

Borders On The Grave

By Dottie Evans

If you want to see how our ancestors felt about death and dying, study their gravestones.

“I looked at a book of old grave rubbings to get a sense of the oldest stones, and I found all sorts of design ideas,” said local artist and Flat Swamp Road resident Christine Winner.

“There were scary skulls, urns, weeping willows, pineapples, and vines. Some were more evocative than others,” she added. “I decided to stick with the vines because they weren’t so threatening looking.”

Ms Winner chose a winged angel’s head and vines as her themes in designing publicity for the Newtown Historical Society’s upcoming Newtown Cemetery Tour scheduled Saturday, May 14. The event will take place at the Village Cemetery off Elm Drive across from the Ram Pasture and there will be three separate tours setting off at 2 pm, 4 pm, and 6 pm.

Notorious ghosts from Newtown’s past will be seen standing beside their gravestones dressed in period costume, and they will each tell their personal stories. Mary Elizabeth Hawley and John Beach are two of ten past residents who have been persuaded to rise for the occasion.

For her day job, Ms Winner is a registered nurse working in the office of Brookfield pediatrician Dr Claire Free, but she is always eager to practice her drawing on the side. To fulfill this lifelong interest, she has illustrated several publications as well as a series of personal Christmas cards.

Ms Winner has also taken drawing courses with Loretta Jones at Western Connecticut State University, and her favorite field is botanical drawing. This might explain her obvious ability to make those shaded, twining vines climb so naturally up and down the tombstone borders of the publicity flyer.

Happily, the angel she drew for the headstone seems more benevolent than threatening.

Still, this is a cemetery tour we’re talking about. While Ms Winner didn’t use macabre images to publicize it, she made sure all the necessary information was clearly shown.

With three consecutive tours scheduled on Saturday, May 14, some brave souls will have to go last. That’s at 6 pm, just as the evening shadows begin to lengthen.