ABERDEEN, S.D. (KELO) — Thirty-three-year-old Tasha Tietz is an old soul.
Her love for history goes back to her days as a young girl.
“As a 5 and 6-year-old I was reading Little House on the Prairie. My choices of dress up would be pretending I’m playing like the 1800s and I’m on a wagon train,” Tietz said.
Today, she still has a passion for the past.
That’s why the Aberdeen woman spends some of her time in cemeteries.
“It’s kind of a dark thing to some. It’s part of life. I want to destigmatize death,” Tietz said.
Tietz takes people on her adventures through her Facebook page Graveyard Girl, something she launched about four years ago during the pandemic.
In addition to snapping pictures at cemeteries, Tietz also writes about some of the dead.
“I do like writing. And it seemed to me that a lot of things need to be shared, and why not me. Why not this place? I didn’t know it would become anything popular,” Tietz said.
But it did become popular.
Graveyard Girl has over 5,800 Facebook followers.
Tietz has explored many cemeteries, mostly in South Dakota.
One of her favorite places to visit is Riverside Memorial Cemetery in Aberdeen.
The city-owned cemetery recorded its first burial in 1886, although it’s possible some were buried on the grounds before that.
Tietz says it won’t take long for a headstone to draw you in.
“And often if you drive through, you’re going to find a person every single time. You may get out and snap a quick picture. I’ve researched just a few names off stones and found a lot of information. There’s prominent figures from Aberdeen, South Dakota that I wanted to learn more about,” Tietz said.
Ryan Smith is the cemetery manager of Riverside.
“It’s great to see a young person like that take an interest in cemeteries and the stories they can tell,” Smith said.
While Graveyard Girl may be documenting the past, people find many reasons to spend time at cemeteries.
“I like to promote it as a park. We have people out here everyday. They’re walking, they’re riding their bikes, they’re walking their dogs, just enjoying the peace and solitude,” Smith said.
Smith says a lot can be learned from visiting a cemetery.
“You can kind of look back and see over history where we’ve had pandemics or epidemics, the Spanish flu. You can look around and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got a lot of 1919 deaths.’ What occurred during that time? You’ve got to do some research, but you look back and see that was kind of the Spanish flu time,” Smith said.
“I do feel so many of these people are out here and people in the community don’t really know they were even influential in any way,” Tietz said.
But thanks to Graveyard Girl, some of the history at Riverside and at other cemeteries is being kept alive.
