✣ Butter Valley Community ✣
This cemetery sits facing old and new route 100 between a brick church and the Bally Community Center. Diagonally across the street is a newer wing of the cemetery. The Butter Valley Community church’s keystone lists a date of 1897, but the cemetery pre-dates that time. Their website touts their establishment as Hereford Mennonite Church more than 250 years ago, but unfortunately I could not locate more specific information on their history there. The Bally Community Center also appears to be an older structure. The earliest headstone I photographed, belonging to Christian Staufer, has a death date of 1797 (fourth image). There are many graves here marked with both head and foot stones, with several arranged so that one person’s foot stone butts up to a headstone in the next row. I also found that many stones include wedding dates (or marriage duration) in addition to those of birth and death. The light was in my favor the day I visited, and it highlighted beautiful details in the stones. Common motifs in this cemetery include roses, sun bursts, willows, and open books. ➺ 4: Christian Stauffer (1728-1797)
➺ 5: Jacob Oberholtzer (1741-1811)
➺ 6: Abraham Gehman (1766-1851)
A series of headstones featuring suns or radial, sunburst-type motifs. ➺ 1: Hannah Weisz (1803-1848)
➺ 2: Elizabeth Bechtel (1770-1815)
➺ 3: David Latshaw (1817-1840)
➺ 4: Peter Moyer (1741-1848)
➺ 5: Philip Funck (1819-1845)
➺ 6: Eva Moyer (1787-1869)
➺ 7: Hanna Latshaw (1763-1832)
➺ 8: Anna Bechtel (1837-1838)
➺ 9: Maria Bechtel (1795-1839)
Variations on the willow tree, a symbol of mourning. ➺ 1: Elizabeth Stauffer (1820-1862)
➺ 2: Henry Landis (1798-1860)
➺ 3: Susanna Landis (1803-1852)
➺ 4: Anna Bauman (1801-1853)
➺ 5: Heinrich Bechtel (1850-1851)
➺ 6: David Klemmer (1842-1861)
➺ 7: Johannes Bechtel (1786-1847)
Roses are a common motif in this cemetery. ➺ 1: Maria H Moyer (1839-1875) & Maria M Moyer (1816-1867)
➺ 2: Barbara Oberholtzer (1796-1848)
➺ 3: Maria Hunsperger (1815-1851)
➺ 4: Lydia Moyer (1842-1864)
Hand to book to scroll on a series of headstones. The open books typically represent the Bible, and a reference to a specific verse is sometimes carved on the pages. ➺ 1: Sophia Bauman (1819-1852)
➺ 2: Tilghman Stauffer (1860-1881)
➺ 3: Martin Oberholtzer (1782-1862)
➺ 4: Catharina Bechtel (1815-1855)
➺ 5: Heinrich Strunk (1803-1866)
➺ 6: Rebecca Strunk (1808-1900)
Miscellaneous headstones with interesting imagery, including two lambs, which typically mark the graves of children, and a bird in flight. ➺ 1: Margaretha Weiss (1817-1854)
➺ 2: David Bauman (1844-1855)
➺ 3: William Stauffer (1818-1870)
➺ 4: Milton Diehl (1869-1869)
➺ 5: Jacob Bechtel (1878-1878?) ✣ Additional resources: ✣
➺ Find A Grave ✣ 2600 Old Route 100 Bally, PA 19503 • Bally Borough, Berks County ✣
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