Sunday, November 12, 2006

The Gravestone Girls

There was an interesting article in the Worcester (MA) Telegram and Gazette dated 31 October 2006 titled "Gravestone Girls. Tombstone Touches Create Decorative Art From the Macabre." The lead:

Every day is Halloween for Maggie White and Brenda Sullivan. They spend as much time in cemeteries as they can making beautiful decorative art from gravestone rubbings and castings. They have been working together since they were children growing up in Southboro. When it came time to name their quirky artistic collaboration, the choice was … monumental. They called themselves the Gravestone Girls.

The last graph:
Have the Gravestone Girls met any scary “citizens” of the cemetery, perhaps around Halloween?

“No, but there was one cemetery in Pepperell that was cursed,” White said. They story goes that, back in Colonial times, a Pepperell woman was accused of witchcraft and put to death. Just before she breathed her last she put a hex on the town. “It seemed like she really did from the stones that we read,” White said. Those stones tell a chilling tale. Over the next 20 years or so, people that had been involved with her prosecution or their family members met with tragic endings. One got his head run over by a wagon and a little boy was crushed by falling boards at a lumber mill. “The carving on the top of the stone is just a little person laying down with two boards crossed over him,” Sullivan said. “There was a fire, a drowning, or their children died. There were eight of them and every one of those tragic deaths they attributed to the curse.”

Read the whole thing - it's a good article. Bravo to the Girls.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

better late than never? i'm one of the gravestonegirls and i just found your post! thanks for mentioniing us!