Salem, Massachusetts
Today, at last, we bring honor and dignity to the hundreds of souls that were laid to rest along Collins Cove, once residents of Salem’s Almshouse and Hospital for Contagious Diseases.
I want to express my deep gratitude to those who helped me give this voice to the voiceless and believed in the importance of recognizing those buried here.
The memorial reads:
IN MEMORY OF
THOSE WHO LIVED AND LABORED
AT THE ALMSHOUSES AND HOSPITALS ON THIS LAND
AND IN HONOR OF THOSE KNOWN AND UNKNOWN
WHO ARE QUIETLY RESTING HERE IN UNMARKED GRAVES
Almshouse Burial Ground Memorial
Salem, Massachusetts
This stone represents years of research and advocacy. I’ve wondered what I would say if this moment arrived and today, like so many things about this project, the words found me.
“The optimist in me always thought that the ultimate purpose of memorials was that they were dress rehearsals for our collective memory, that in the course of building a shrine to the fallen, we remind ourselves of our broader obligations to the vulnerable. You give the benefit of your empathy and generosity to the memory of someone… and then it becomes easier to extend that empathy and generosity to the lonely and the suffering who are still among us. You get good at meaningful adjacency for the dead, and that makes you better at practicing it on the living.
But that’s not what happens, is it? We go to any length, any length to commemorate one person’s death, deploy armies of architects and engineers, then in the same breath look the other way as we step over someone lying on the street.” – Malcolm Gladwell
Our work is not done. May this memorial serve as a reminder to extend our empathy and generosity to the lonely and the suffering among us.
