You learn a lot about a place and its history when you take some quiet time in the sacred space where a town buries its ancestors. I had the chance to do that this afternoon in the Wickenburg Municipal Cemetery, where I began to put "names to faces" of families I've heard and read about, and in some cases gotten to know a bit.
A couple of things struck me: (1) so many of the Sons of Wickenburg have their U.S. military affiliations inscribed on their headstones; (2) the plots themselves are festooned with deeply personal mementos -- letters, pottery, fotos, toys, and, of course, flowers; (3) the Hispanic Legacy of the American Southwest is evident in our little town's cemetery; and, (4) some of the earliest settlers in these parts -- long before Arizona became a state -- are interred here.
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