Rochester Postcard Project Day 30

Ten more days and I will be finished with this series. Woo hoo!.  Anyway, I am still at Mount Hope cemetery.  This is, I am told, the oldest mausoleum there.  Yet another family with no one to care for the site.

It is built into the side of the hill and made of a very soft stone.  Most of the facade details have long ago been wiped off.  The stone floor in front of it has several family members buried under it and some of the lettering is still there but they too are wearing away.  And, as you can see there is plenty of plant life growing up through the lay'd stone floor in front of it.

Why did I decide then to draw this one then?  As I was wondering around a woman in her 20's came up to this monument and sat down on the steps leading into the mausoleum and started writing a note. I left her to her privacy, but when she left I noticed a shoe box left behind.  Thinking she may have forgotten it I went over to pick it up and get it back to her.  But, that wasn't the case. Inside the box was a gift - what you see below.

The young lady had left a pair of shoes there for the homeless with the note saying something to the effect that whoever wanted these she hoped would bless them. I was touched by it and decided to leave it there, back up and draw the scene you see below.  

To me, even though there wasn't any family there to maintain the mausoleum the mausoleum had become a focal point for blessing others.  They were picked up by someone within the hour(no one from the cemetery staff)