1. Windows in the Garden: Italian-American Cemeteries Memorialization and the American Cemetery
John Matturri

2. Purpose of the Graveyard
Older graveyards reflecting Puritan and Medieval beliefs
Mortality – see in epithets and symbols (e.g. death skull)
Italian cemeteries reflect a strong Catholic tradition
They maintained a notion of purgatory
A transition place after death
An opportunity for some to still earn their way into heaven

3. Prayers of the living for those that have departed may be able to send one to heaven
Italian immigrants coming to the U.S. would, like any ethnic group, follow their sets of beliefs
2nd and 3rd generation began to assimilate and lose some of the rituals and practices
Home vigils cease and funeral home wakes become the norm
Leaving food at the grave stops
Taking photographs of the corpse also stops

4. The cemetery helps to maintain family connections
This in turn reinforces community connections
One’s identity or sense of self derives from the group
Group history becomes important
Staying connected to ancestors becomes important
This may become more true as groups are further from home
The grave becomes the site of ritualized communion with the dead
This did create problems with the cemeteries in the U.S.

5. The cemetery movement in part tried to do away with uniqueness
Create park like settings
Common burial grounds
Community values and norms
Adding ‘stuff’ to the grave seemed unsightly and distasteful
Plants, flowers, and ornaments seemed to deter from the blending and forgetting of the less than individualized stones and communal burial grounds
For the Italian Catholics adding to the grave provided identity

6. Creating fences around the grave served manifest and latent functions
Manifest functions – keeps other stuff from invading the grave
Keeps mowers from damaging the grave
Latent functions – helps to identify the plot and provide uniqueness
Creates private space in the midst of common ground

7. Photographs common to many groups lasted until 1940s
They are coming back thanks to modern technology
Pictures help keep the deceased real
Helps keep the connection to deceases and family real
Pictures of deceased on the stone will often reflect status
Well dressed
Identity tags – things that will help support the status of the deceased
Three main design issues for graves are; 1st – dignity of the deceased; 2nd – status of family; 3rd – connection between dead and living