Cemetery Customs & Traditions of Days Gone By: Dining With the Dead

Enjoying a picnic in a cemetery was not always a taboo activity: Quite the contrary — a graveside lunch was a leisure activity for many. People often dined while visiting their dearly departed, and city residents regularly took advantage of cemeteries for strolls and carriage rides, too. Join Candace Summers, McLean County History Museum senior director of education, to explore funerary customs and superstitions of the Victorian-era. Learn about the types of monuments that populate Evergreen Memorial Cemetery, Bloomington’s oldest and most historic cemetery, and hear stories of some of the McLean County citizens who rest there.