Ancestors

black and white photo of burial ground
Ancestors

Perhaps this is the season to remember out ancestors, or at least those who came before us in this place. This photo is a portion of the burial ground at Old St. Luke’s Church in Scott Township, PA.

The church was founded in 1765 and though in this century it was abandoned. I grew up near here and remember tiptoeing though that burial ground and peering into the church windows imagining we saw skeletons lying on the pews and ghosts flitting about in broad daylight. I am surprised the church survived intact with so many curious teens around, and yet it did, sans skeletons.

It has no congregation, but a group of people for the sake of history secured it, renovated and reopened it. Many of the markers date before the American Revolution and few in this section are newer than 1840. They are worn nearly smooth with age, or cracked and chipped, but a new technology has proved to show the text and images on the stones as if they were newly carved.

And in those days this little settlement on the bluff above Chartiers Creek was a tiny clearing the dense old-growth forest on the hills, hard to believe people could survive here.

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