People have personalities, nuances and things that are a part of their life.

We see them in life and we also want to see them in death.

Monuments can do just that, capturing the person’s life in stone.

For hundreds of years, the dead have been memorialized with beautiful monuments that have stood the test of time and given lost lives something by which to be remembered.

A stroll through the Natchez City Cemetery tells stories of tragic accidents, young deaths and long lives.

You can see the exquisiteness and flamboyance of Don Jose Vidal, who served as governor of Natchez’s Spanish District in 1798 and for whom Vidalia is named.

The tragic and untimely death of five young girls who died in the 1908 explosion of the Natchez Drug Co. on Main Street is clearly shown in the beautiful Turning Angel monument erected in their honor.

And a simple grave marker beside a stairwell leading down into the ground shows the love and tenderness a mother had for her deceased 10-year-old daughter, who was frightened by storms.

Florence Irene Ford’s mother requested the grave be constructed with a glass window and a descending concrete stairwell built behind the gravestone to the level of the casket.

During storms, she would descend the staircase and comfort her daughter even in death.

Even today, descendants of Ford leave stuffed animals and flowers at the gravesite.

Grandiose and sentimental stories aren’t the only ones told in the cemetery. Sad and tragic ones are told as well.

A simple slab with no dates or identification tells the story of one of those sad tales.

It says only “Louise the Unfortunate” and marks the grave of a young girl who died in a brothel Under-the-Hill after the Civil War.

“You could spend all day out here,” former director of the cemetery Mike Downey said. “(I was) here for two years and have walked to every stone and every monument and it’s fascinating. I’ve never seen a cemetery anywhere in the world that has as much character as this one.”

Natchez resident Ruthie Coy, who has several ancestors buried in the cemetery, says that the monuments are ways to look into the past and find out things about the individual.

“There are so many interesting stories out there,” Coy said. “You look at the monuments and wish you could talk to the person buried there and ask them questions about their life.”

Coy said one such monument led her and her husband Jim to do more research on the man who built the antebellum house in which they live in, a free black man from Baltimore named Robert Smith.

“We found an amazing amount of information on his tombstone,” Coy said. “We went on investigating to find out his story. Each bit of information on stone is a window into that person’s life.”

Downey said the thing that makes the old monuments at the cemetery truly special is the intricate detail that was put into the design by the craftsmen of the day.

For example, one monument has an incredibly detailed carving of an angelic child sleeping with his head on a pillow on top of one of the monuments, signifying a child’s death.

Another monument is a fairly simple looking tall block with the exception of two arms wrapping around the monument and hands holding each other, signifying the love a husband had for his wife.

“It’s amazing the ability they had to cut stone back then,” Downey said. “Now, it’s either cost prohibitive or there just aren’t people that can do it anymore. Now you just get a concrete slab with your name on it.”

It’s a little more complicated than that, according to Brookhaven Monument Company director Kevin Laird, although it is true that no cemetery monument will ever be as intricate as the ones created in the last centuries. The Brookhaven company handles all engraving for Natchez Monument Company.

“You can call that a lost art,” Laird said of stone cutters who can make the intricate designs found in the Natchez City Cemetery and other old burial grounds. “A true stone carver is hard to find. That is old school hand cutting work. A lot of good work comes from overseas, especially China, but computers have really changed the industry a lot.”

Instead of a master craftsman spending hours upon hours slaving over an unfinished piece of sandstone, marble or granite, the process is done much more easily now, thanks to computers and sandblasters.

First the stone is selected and cut to specifications, usually either a square or a rounded top. The family will then select the script for the lettering and decide on a design, which will be stenciled and laid over the stone.

A sandblaster will penetrate the stone to do the engraving and if something needs to be tweaked by hand or added, a carver can come in later and make a deeper cut or add something to the monument.

While stone monuments are no longer created by hand, the traditional things that appear on the monuments are changing as well.

Gone are the broken columns signifying a tragic death or an upside down torch signifying the end of the family line. Replacing them are symbols of Christianity, such as the cross or praying hands, and symbols of life, such as flowers.

“You don’t see as much with symbols as in years past. Traditions sometimes go by the wayside,” Laird said. “I haven’t done a broken column in probably 10 years.”

But whether the stone is one of the intricate ones on Catholic Hill or Jewish Hill in the cemetery, or a plain one sitting in a local church plot, they all mean something to friends and loved ones of the deceased.

“The best part of the job is helping the family with something important,” Laird said.

“A burial monument is the third largest purchase a person will make in their life and it’s the most stressful. You get to meet some nice people and make a tribute that will be seen for generations.”