BRAD HORN/Nevada Appeal Chris Wilson, 10, and his mother Lori on Saturday walk past the gravesite in Virginia City's Silver Terrace Cemetery of a girl who died at the age of 8 months and 18 days.
Standing on the dry, rocky ground of Virginia City's Silver Terrace Cemetery on Saturday morning during a tour for Comstock Historic Preservation Weekend, a woman spoke to her guide.
"How did they dig in this stuff?"
"They were miners!" someone hollered.
Judy Allen of the Comstock Cemetery Foundation wore a black, period dress to lead the tour.
"Women were required to be in mourning after a death - 12 months for a child and 24 months for a husband," she explained. That meant wearing the dull, black dresses everyday.
"It was very expensive," said Allen. "So a group of women up here, in true Comstock style, organized a group called The Mourning Reform Association to try to get the laws changed."
She lead the group through the sprawling, hilltop cemetery, called Silver Terrace. It's broken up into smaller plots owned by groups such as the "Exempt Firefighters" (those who served 20 years and were exempt from responding to every call), the Masons, Oddfellows, Catholics, Jews and the Knights of Pythais.
"They were formed after the Civil War," Allen said of the knights. "Their main goal was to bring the North and South together again."
Stan Bauman of Carson City was happy with the tour. He lingered afterward, chatting with Allen.
"We get a lot of visitors who are interested in all the history so we figured we better get better acquainted with it all," he said.
He moved to Nevada from California with his wife, Ellen, about four years ago.
They planned to attend other Comstock Historic Preservation Weekend events such as Saturday night's Grand Ball at Piper's Opera House. Dance master Kent "Gus" Gustafson was scheduled to entertain with Victorian dance music provided by the Dennis Butterfield Quartet.
"There's a lot of history here," said Bauman.
Allen said she enjoys giving cemetery tours because it's a more authentic look at Virginia City than the main strip of town.
"The people who come on these tours are always interesting. They're not the T-shirt crowd. And you learn a lot, too. People will say, 'Oh my grandfather was buried up here in 1879.' Sometimes I learn more than I teach."
Contact Karl Horeis at khoreis@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1219.
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