The book is neither morbid nor irreverent. The cemeteries I visited across the state are very peaceful places of love and remembrance. In the shadow of the hillsides, in the hot prairie sun, in the cities and atop the mountains, Colorado's cemeteries provide a testament to the history of this great state. Their silent stones hold clues about early Colorado life, tragedy, disaster, hope and endurance. These cemeteries also serve as a treasure trove of past community and social structure.
Cemeteries seem to be the last resource for the historian, the curious and the genealogist.
The traditional cemetery is fast-disappearing. Green lawns, flowers, and shrubs are being eliminated to conserve water, thus losing the park atmosphere our pioneers strove to achieve. Meanwhile, monuments are increasingly limited to flat markers, thus prohibiting the more artistic and expressive memorials that helped to make the American cemetery so unique. Throughout the prairies of eastern Colorado, hundreds of small cemeteries dot the land, recounting in stone and wood the lives of settlers. Early Colorado statutes allowed any three individuals the right to create a cemetery.