I was with Marc yesterday and did maybe a half dozen WSQ caches, and I noticed that he looked at the placement of the cemetery (is it on a hill? Nice view? All stones face the East?) that type of thing. He looks for unusual stones and notices if there are any special military flag holders from the civil war or GAR. We noticed what we thought was a very special round stone set in the ground, but it turned out to be from a headstone 10 feet away that had fallen from it’s “setting” atop another headstone.

What I noticed was his total genuine interest in almost every aspect of our visit with the geocache being a bonus to our being there.

Cemetery’s are like open history books that are meant to be visited and read before the words on the page are ravaged by time. I found my great great grand parents stone in Greenville that is all but unreadable. He died in 1860 and may very well be one of the earliest Greenville pioneers buried there. I find that fascinating 150 years later. 5 or 10 more years of acid rain and the marble will be unreadable. We need to remember the dead before the markers are gone. 😉

I also agree that cemetery caches should be respectful. I don’t think caches are required to “identify the cemetery” or “memorialize those who are buried there”. This may be your “ideal”, but others may differ.

I don’t want to start a big discussion on walking on graves, but it isn’t generally considered disrespectful. How do you think they get mowed? It’s more like a phobia some people have.

Keep in mind the Wisconsin is a big state. We don’t have a crop of WSQs in my area, so I’m not aware of the ones you are referring to.

Some of my favorite caches are in cemetery’s and I have also not seen any pointedly disrespectful hides in them. But if you have, do email the owner or post a “Needs Archive” note on the page if you really feel the cache is disrespectful. A reviewer is notified automatically and can look at the details.

I don’t feel it’s ‘wrong’ to walk in front of a grave marker. Many people kneel or sit down directly in front of them when visiting. But to require someone to enter that space for the sole purpose of retrieving a cache might be one of those gray areas. If the CO intended the hunter to go to that specific marker and take note, great. If it was just a random selection because of the tree near it, not so great.

I also believe that WSQ’s should be in good taste, and that proper care should be taken when placing, and finding these caches.

However, my headstone will be a cache. I invite you all to come (some day way down the road!) walk where you will, sit and talk a few, even hold a flash-mob, as long as you are respectful to the folks I’m lying next too. Yeah, it’ll be a puzzle cache. 🙂

When we first started caching we thought it was kinda weird to look for caches in cemeteries. It gave us a funny feeling. Now we enjoy cemetery caches, no more weird feeling. A lot of the time we don’t just look for the cache, we take a little time and check out the cemetery itself. We have not seen one yet that was disrespectful. Heck sometimes I even take pictures of headstones for my family tree and at first people that was rather morbid but now most enjoy it. It is a good way to preserve family history, after all, someday that headstone may be unreadable.