So I found a historical photo that was too good not to share.  What you see here is the grave of Mary Washington, George Washington’s mother, in my college town of Fredericksburg, VA.

It ought to look a bit strange to my college friends who remember the site.  What is now known (officially, anyway) as Kenmore Park/Memorial Park was a popular walking destination for students at Mary Washington College.  (This is the site of “Mary’s Rock.”  And if you partied downtown and walked back to campus, chances are you walked past it.)  This site is just off Washington Avenue.  The Gordon Family Cemetery was behind the obelisk.  (The cemetery is pictured at left here — see the low wall — as this picture is looking northwest.)

Look at how small and sparse then trees were in 1912.  (They were pretty big by the 1990’s.)  This is part of a group of public domain images here at Project Gutenberg.  They vary in quality, but some of them are pretty neat.