RI Rambles: Historic Cemetery Awareness Day

People are dying to get into this

In an interesting juxtaposition, April 14 is also Historic Cemetery Restoration / Awareness Day. It’s a grave holiday, and if you want to get your headstone on, you can join Cranston Mayor and gubernatorial candidate Alan Fung to clean up the Oakland Cemetery at 1569 Broad St, Cranston from 9am to noon, or join dozens of other green maintenance actions.

This is an RI-only holiday, but it’s statewide; there are clean-ups at graveyards large and small, new and old, all over the biggest little. For more on a cemetery near you, check a full list at fb.com/RIHistoricCemeteries. There might be one even nearer to you than you think — our wilds are sprinkled liberally with small, early cemeteries that are overgrown and practically forgotten. Who knows, you might even find a stone for a long, long lost relative.