MARSHALL — Fall and winter conditions create stark, ghostly imagery for cemeteries, but Doug Ohman sees them in a different light.

Ohman — a photographer, historian, and storyteller — spoke this fall at Marshall’s Adult Community Center about his hobby of walking cemeteries. He looks for interesting details on gravestones, which make him want to know more about the people who were buried.

“I don’t have any personal connection to them,” Ohman said. “When I see something different and unusual, I want to know the stories.”

He often goes to county courthouses and local museums for more information. More often than not, he finds interesting details about someone’s life.

He said the process leads to a connection between the past and the present. Even if someone died many years ago, he or she still has similarities to those who are alive in 2024.

“They had high points and low points in their lives,” he said. “They had dreams and goals, just like people have them now. There’s definitely a connection.”

During the hour-long program he shared many details about cemeteries. He noted the difference between a cemetery and a graveyard, which involves a graveyard being located next to a church.

Many rural cemeteries are located about a mile outside of a town, while others are situated in the middle of open countryside. Often they were bordered by fences to keep pastured livestock from wandering into them.

Minnesota’s first cemetery was the Soldiers and Pioneers Cemetery at the intersection of Lake and Cedar in Minneapolis. It once had about 23,000 graves, but now has about 18,000 since many were moved to newer, more park like cemeteries starting in the late 1800s. Soldiers and Pioneers had its last burial in the early 20th century.

When talking about interesting graves, he pointed to the grave of Minnesota’s only Revolutionary War veteran. The grave in Winona is shaped like Fort Ticonderoga. One of the man’s commanders at Ticonderoga was Benedict Arnold.

Other examples were the grave of the last surviving Union Civil War veteran in Duluth and a grave near Granite Falls for a Native American woman who took the name Minnie Sota and married a white man.

Some early 20th century graves feature statues. The Grand Army of the Republic sometimes commissioned statues for the graves of Union veterans.

“Newer graves are much simpler, partly because of the cost of the materials and partly to blend in with the other nearby graves,” Ohman said. “Veterans groups don’t put up statues anymore, but they still do a very good job of sharing personal stories.”

Ohman has 38 different historical programs, mostly about Minnesota. He speaks at the Adult Community Center several times each year.

“Doug almost doesn’t need an introduction when he visits us,” said Program Coordinator Jenni DeRuyter. We keep having him back because he always draws a crowd. We know him and we love him.”