The following article was written by Jim Memmott, published by the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, October 1, 2022
Webster photographer explores cemeteries as places of healing and comfort
Cemeteries can scare people, so it’s no wonder some people were surprised when Jane Hopkins told them she was putting together a book on burial grounds.
“People said, ‘You’re doing what?’” she recalled in an interview. “’Why would you ever want to go to cemeteries?’ Some of those people now love the book.”
The book, the recently published “Cemetery Reflections,” features photos Hopkins took during 12 years of visiting cemeteries. They are accompanied with writings on death and life from a variety of sources, including gravestones.
In the process, Hopkins, a fine arts photographer, makes a compelling and comforting case for cemeteries. She sees them not just as places that honor the dead but also as peaceful places that provide healing for the living.
Hopkins will give a talk on the book at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 1, at the Gleason Auditorium at Rochester’s Central Library, 115 South Ave. Part of the presentation will feature Rochester’s Mt. Hope Cemetery.
“The book was not something I planned, but I'm very glad I did,” says Hopkins, who lives in Webster. “I feel quite at peace with cemeteries now. I feel quite at peace with the idea of death that I hadn't felt before.”
She notes that death has been all too present lately, given the pandemic, and cemeteries have become even more central, families gathering to say their goodbyes and returning to keep connections alive.
Growing up, Hopkins wasn’t comfortable with cemeteries. Her father had died when she was young; her mother found it difficult to visit his grave; the family didn’t go often.
But when her daughter Catherine lost her friend Jenny to suicide when she was in college, Hopkins’ attitude began to change. She saw the peace Catherine found in visiting Jenny’s grave. She spent time there, had conversations with the friend she had lost.
“The veil between the living and the dead is more flexible in a cemetery,” Hopkins says. “She could remember Jenny. She could talk to Jenny.”
Later, while visiting Prince Edward Island in Canada, Hopkins went to a local cemetery and was struck by its beauty and how the cemetery and its headstones gave an insight to the community around it.
Hopkins took photographs then and continued to do so throughout New England, New York state, and other locales, visiting more than 200 cemeteries.
Some of her photos show the loving details that can be found in cemeteries – a small carving of a baby, a bird, an angel. In other pictures, Hopkins steps back, shows the many graves and shady trees that compose a cemetery landscape.
One photo captures a snow-covered scene in Mt. Hope Cemetery. A leafless tree stands among the graves. Hopkins accompanies the picture with words from Albert Camus: “In the midst of winter, I found ... within me, an invisible summer.”
The book is divided into two sections, the first giving a broad view of cemeteries. The second focuses more closely on grief and death. Hopkins includes some of her own reflections in this section, writing about the death of her mother and her brother, as well as about others who are gone, but still remembered.
The pages of “Cemetery Reflections” can be visited in any order, much as if one were to stop in a country cemetery one day and a large urban cemetery the next.
The book is striking, in part, for what isn’t there. Hopkins didn’t focus her camera on the graves and headstones of prominent people. Rather, she features the poignant and intriguing memorials to people who are not well known.
“Cemeteries should be all about a sacredness and a respect for somebody's life, no matter who they were and how much money they have,” Hopkins says. “That's one reason why my book doesn't have any famous people in it.”
Thus, we come upon unfamiliar names, much as if we were walking through a cemetery in an unfamiliar place. We’re pulled in by the headstones. There’s one from the Bridge Street Cemetery in Northampton, Massachusetts. It reads “Elizabeth Parsons Allen, 1716-1800, Mother of Six Sons in the American Revolution.”
We wonder about Elizabeth Allen. What was her life like? Did the sons come home? As we ask these questions, Elizabeth Allen is honored. The cemetery has done its job, worked its magic. No wonder people go there.
About the book
To find out more about “Cemetery Reflections” go to cemeteryreflections.com. The book is available through Amazon and through BookBaby at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/cemetery-reflections
From his home in Geneseo, Livingston County, retired senior editor Jim Memmott, writes Remarkable Rochester, who we were, who we are. He can be reached at jmemmott@gannett.com or write Box 274, Geneseo, NY 14454