The quest for the lost graveyard
About thirty to forty years ago I usually spent my summers in Croatia, on the island of Brač. Some of the time I spent in Donji Humac, the home of my mother’s family, the rest of the time in Pučišća, the home of my father’s family.
In Pučišća, I often spend time with my cousins, including my cousin Robert. As every kid of that age, we explored the neighborhood, and there was plenty to explore. One day, instead of going our usual way, towards the sea, we went the other direction. We crossed the nearby bypass road, and then, on the other side, we found a small graveyard, with a chapel in the middle which also doubled as a crypt for a local rich family.
I remember the pine trees, the shade, the spiderwebs across the trees. I did not remember the name of the family for sure, but I think it was Dominis, or Gospodetnić. I remember the small stone fence which gave the graveyard an almost square shape. I remember the dark plates with the hard to read names, almost washed out by time and the scarce rain.
The main graveyard of Pučišća is in a different place, on the far end of the town, near one of the coves on the way to the large quarry outside of town. Since then, I learned a lot more about the history of Pučišća, and it often mentioned that main graveyard. The history of that place went back to Roman times, featuring a shrine to Jupiter and a little church to Saint Stephen from the 11th century. Also my family’s grave is in that graveyard, but only starting with my grandfather. I could never find where my great grandfather, or earlier generations, were buried.
I came to believe that the other graveyard, the one Robert and I had found, was for the less wealthy people of Pučiśća. I first thought it was the older one, Robert and I called it the old graveyard, but this didn’t make sense since the main graveyard literally contains the oldest traces of human settlement in town. We must have been mistaken.
Over the last few years, I tried to figure out more about the graveyard, but none of the sources I read mentioned it. There was also no entry on the find-a-grave website. I used Google Maps and OpenStreetMaps to find it, but failed. I used Google StreetView to follow the bypass road, which has been redone since, but couldn’t find it either. I decided that at the next opportunity I will find the graveyard again, and document all graves on find-a-grave. Maybe I will even find some ancestors.
This year finally I went back to Pučišća for a few weeks. Whereas I found it too hot to do much exploration, on one of the few cooler evenings I decided to finally make the walk, and find it. It took me a while, I wasn’t sure about the way, but eventually I came upon a square enclosure of the right size with a chapel in the middle. The chapel was dedicated to the Lady of Lourdes, and looked somewhat different than I remembered it. In particular, it did not contain a crypt. And although it had pine trees and spider webs, there was not a single grave, merely a large stone cross which had toppled over. On the way back, I also could reconstruct the path that Robert and I took a few decades ago. I am very sure this is the right place, but there are no graves.
I was confused. The next day, I happened to meet Robert. I asked him whether he remembers how we went exploring that direction as kids, and he immediately knew what I was talking about. Seemed to be a core memory for both of us. And then I asked about the graves.
There are no graves, he said. There were never graves. There never was a graveyard, and we had not found one. I had confabulated that whole part. We had found the enclosure and the chapel, but the other memories were an invention of my imagination. No wonder I could never find anything about it.
I am glad I resolved that question. I am a bit surprised by how well established that wrong memory was. Unsurprisingly, I still can recall the wrong memory of the graveyard, even though now I know it is wrong, and any memory of the actual events has long faded and been replaced with my continuous retelling of a story that never happened.
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