This five-part speaker series features different Explore Buffalo docents presenting lectures on a wide variety of topics.

The Secrets of Cemetery Symbolism:

Cemeteries offer a variety of monuments and headstones, which convey an impression or memory of the person who has departed. However, when we look closer, we find deeper messages to be read. In this talk we will look at a variety of symbols found on headstones and memorials and learn their meanings – some of which date back to ancient Egyptian times. As we will see, beyond the simple flowers and crosses, the details of a person’s life lurk hidden beneath the symbols.

Presenter: Donnie Gibson

A Grave Discussion:

Death is as inevitable as taxes! For generations, humans have grappled with what to do with our dead. In addition to burying dead on church-owned lands, burial grounds were also formed on state land or land lent by farmers or local merchants. In Buffalo, both public and pauper (potter) burial lands were formed at what appear to be random locations as the city grew. As towns expanded outward, bodies located in (no longer) rural areas were exhumed and reinterred further away from the city proper in beautified cemeteries – a move which characterized the Rural Cemetery Movement that swept the country beginning in the 1830s. Come listen to a casual presentation that focuses on this area’s very first burial grounds – former, abandoned, and the oldest cemeteries that exist today.

Presenter: Judy Tucker

All Adventures in Buffalo History sessions are from 7-9 PM on Thursday evenings at First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo on Symphony Circle.