Walk with the dead exhumes early Nevada history by Arthur Pines,Outpost Staff In this package: Lone Mountain Cemetery Cemeteries of Virginia City Cindy Southerland Cindy Southerland knows much about many prominent people of Nevada. Not present-day luminaries like Bob Miller and Toni Tenille -- but the ones that are six feet under. Southerland, a graduate student at the University of Nevada, Reno, says she first became interested in cemeteries after visiting the Virginia City cemeteries. She soon started studying the people who populate several area cemeteries. "Cemeteries are really outdoor museums," she says. The Virginia City cemeteries lay on the edge of town. Photo by Arthur Pines Southerland's fascination with cemeteries has led her to publish a guide to the Lone Mountain Cemetery in Carson City. But she takes her devotion one step further. She often dresses in widow's weeds when she lectures about cemeteries at museums. She's not strange; she's just interested in Nevada history, and cemeteries uncover much of it. Southerland sees cemetery markers as historical documents. "They tell us a lot about where these people came from, causes of death a lot of the time, sometimes their occupation," she says. Southerland takes to heart the words of Mark Twain, who wrote in Roughing It: "In order to know a community, one must observe the style of its funerals and know what manner of men they bury with most ceremony." The entrance to Lone Mountain offers reflection into Nevada's past. Photo by Arthur Pines. Southerland finds that gravestones often reveal poetry, affiliations and associations, birth and passing dates, job titles, metaphorical symbolism and even the tombstone maker, which all clue her into the lives of the deceased. Through her research and observations, she now knows grave markers of outlaws and governors, miners and carriage drivers, lawyers and doctors, women and children, all of which speckle the Nevada landscape as reminders of years past. As a result of the difficulties of settling the West, people often died young from disease or in mining accidents, she said. Mothers and children died in the child birth process. People died from contaminated water sources and poor sanitation. "It's real important that we study that and learn that because it tells us a lot about the history of our area and our culture. It's important that we protect that for our future." Both the Virginia City cemeteries and Lone Mountain Cemetery capture the essence of early Nevada history because many of its first settlers are buried in them.   Related links: Cemeteries of Nevada County History of Reno area     copyright 12/10/97 Nevada Outpost http://www.jour.unr.edu/outpost Nevada Outpost is produced by students at the Reynolds School of Journalism, University of Nevada, Reno Copyright 1999 Nevada Outpost http://www.jour.unr.edu/outpost