Lou Gehrig: As the baseball season begins, paying respects to a baseball legend...

I am a genealogy enthusiast, and a cousin of mine and I went up to Albany yesterday to do some family tree research. On the way back, she wanted to stop at a cemetery in Valhalla, New York, to try to find the graves of some newly discovered ancestors. I had never even heard of Kensico Cemetery, but this place is huge, and beautiful, with these large, fancy, elaborate, sometimes beautiful and sometimes ostentatious headstones. They even give historic walking tours, because apparently there are a whole bunch of famous people buried there - Ayn Rand, Tommy Dorsey, Glenda the Good Witch (probably not her real name, but that's the name the cemetery employee told us, so maybe? :)) ... and New York Yankee Lou Gehrig. I thought that was pretty cool. And what was even better was that his headstone was nice, but simple and low key, and he's surrounded by his family in his plot. I thought it was especially appropriate that as the new baseball season begins, fresh and new and full of promise, that I got the chance to pay my respects to one of the all-time baseball greats, who I'm sure, wherever he is, is rooting for the home team today.

Go Yanks! :)

Lou Gehrig's grave in Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, NY. Taken 7 April 2012 by Mary Ellen Gorry.