" What a Year"

​Well, I can’t recall a year in my lifetime, thus far, when 12 midnight on New Year’s Eve couldn’t come fast enough. This year is it, and it’s a real shame that the legendary Dick Clark isn’t still here to help usher in 2021 in “Rockin’ style.”

The past 12 months of 2020 will go down in history as the year the world saw a pandemic like no other, ruining just about everything except the always precious gift of new babies born within its 365 day-span. I don’t need to go into all the negative things that went on display this past year, but it has been a period most all of us are eager to put in the rear-view mirror. Let’s just push the reset button in hopes for a kinder, gentler and brighter 2021.

Of course, some folks have capitalized on this miserable time period including toilet paper, hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipe manufacturers. Amazon, Netflix and grocery stores made out pretty well, as did Covid face-mask manufacturers and vandalism supply outlets. Even on the back end of the year, makers of novelty t-shirts, mugs and bumper stickers calling out 2020 are getting the last laugh. Although in all seriousness, it really hasn’t been a laughing matter. And that’s a perfect segue as difference of opinion, ideology and thought ran rampant this past year, and divided friends and family in many cases. That said, perhaps there is only one thing that we can all agree on and come to the consensus that, plain and simply, 2020 was forgettable yet unforgettable. 

The anchor cross is used to signify 'fresh start' or 'hope,' as referenced in Hebrews 6.19: "Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil." An anchor brings security, which was important in the uncertain times of the early church.

​On a strictly serious note, Covid-19 and the loss, pain, suffering and stress it has brought over the past year has been no laughing matter.

I will share that from our cemetery perspective, we expected a much worse result than what we experienced in number of related deaths. Back in March, with the onset, we had staff meetings in which we planned for mass burials, or at least what had occurred back in fall/winter of 1918 with the Spanish Influenza pandemic. At that time, Frederick County experienced roughly 250 deaths between September, 1918-January, 1919. One-hundred of those victims are buried here in Mount Olivet. Yes, it was a less populated world back then, but medicine, technology and communication are nothing like we have today, a century later. 

​Since the beginning of 2020, even considering the first Coronavirus positive cases did not start appearing until mid-March, we have had 275 total interments in Mount Olivet, which mirrors our annual total over the last several years. From the information made aware to us by our partnering funeral homes, only seven of these 275 deaths in 2020 were the direct result of Covid-19.

We have interred here seven victims of the Coronavirus:
* four victims were residents of Montgomery County with three over the age of 75 and one under 50.  
*one victim was from Washington County and 70 years old
*two victims were Frederick County residents, a man in his 70s and a woman in her 90s
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Yes, one death from Covid-19 is too many, but when you really think about how bad things could have been in terms of fatalities, we were very fortunate. Happy New Year to all of our readers, families and friends, and thanks for your continued support of these stories and Mount Olivet Cemetery.