With Halloween just around the corner, stories of ghosts, graveyards and the past are especially fitting. But for Tasha Tietz, known online as “Graveyard Girl,” exploring cemeteries is about much more than spooky stories. It is a way to preserve history, honor the people who came before us and uncover the stories behind the names carved in stone, including some right here in the Britton area.
Tietz, who grew up in Aberdeen, moved to the Britton area after marrying her husband in 2015. His family, the Becks, continues to farm in the area. The couple returned to Aberdeen in 2019, but Tietz’s time near Britton helped spark the cemetery explorations that eventually grew into her online presence.
“I have been visiting cemeteries for over twenty years, but in the last ten years have truly made it my passion,” she said.
Her interest began with a love of history and the outdoors. While living in the country near Britton with two young children, Tietz often took drives through the countryside while her children napped in the car. Cemeteries offered a place to stop, stretch her legs and explore.
“I was a mother with two young children living in the country with an itch for adventure and exploring,” she said.
She began using Find a Grave, a website and app where volunteers document burial sites, photograph headstones, connect family members and share biographies. After starting a project to document every burial at Sacred Heart Cemetery in Aberdeen, Tietz began sharing her discoveries on her personal Facebook account. In 2020, she created the dedicated Graveyard Girl page.
Her interest in cemeteries is a passion outside her career as a registered nurse. In a fitting coincidence, she typically works the graveyard shift.
For local readers, one of her favorite places to explore is the Britton Cemetery, where she said historic and beautiful monuments offer plenty to discover.
One monument that has stayed with her commemorates Rose Sayer and her two young children, Harold and Lillian. It also memorializes an uncle, Henry Otto, a cousin, Carl Romey, and even the family’s horse, “Old Kit.”
Located on the west side of the cemetery’s older section, the large, diamond-shaped monument features carvings of Rose on one side and her children on the other. The stories behind the names are striking. The children died in a fire, Otto died in the Blizzard of 1888, and Romey died after falling from a horse.
“The monument is loaded with interesting bits of history,” Tietz said.
For her, these discoveries demonstrate how cemeteries can offer a personal connection to events and lives that might otherwise be forgotten.
“Visiting burial sites is a less common way to experience history first-hand,” she said.
Tietz looks for cemeteries she has never visited, especially those with old or unusual monuments. She also enjoys genealogy and visiting the graves of her own ancestors and those of her children. Sometimes a headstone leads to a story about a notable person. Other times, the most compelling discovery is an ordinary person whose life was anything but ordinary.
Her research draws on resources such as Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org and Find a Grave, along with obituaries, newspaper articles, census records, military records and information shared by others. She has uncovered stories of people who died in the Children’s Blizzard of 1888, people connected to famous relatives and individuals whose lives hold unexpected details.
“Sometimes writing a grave story comes with many hours of research to provide accurate details and to convey the story in a respectful manner,” she said. “I take pride in providing accurate history and details with the writings I share.”
Her work also occasionally includes cleaning historic headstones. After watching other content creators restore monuments, Tietz saw an opportunity to give back and help preserve history. She has permission to clean historic monuments at Riverside Cemetery in Aberdeen and is particularly drawn to older headstones marking the graves of infants, children and veterans.
She researches proper cleaning methods before beginning and obtains permission from a family or cemetery. Her supplies include D/2 Biological Solution, soft-bristled brushes, flexible plastic scrapers and Orvus paste soap. The treatment works over time to reduce biological growth such as lichen without relying on harsh scrubbing.
Tietz hopes her work encourages others to explore the cemeteries in their own communities and take an interest in the stories around them. “I hope that my videos and photos will encourage people to get out and explore cemeteries and take a deeper interest in the history that is waiting to be uncovered in their own towns and surrounding areas,” she said. “I hope to destigmatize death and visiting cemeteries as they are a great source of local culture and history.”
The Graveyard Girl community has grown to more than 15,000 Facebook followers from across the United States and other countries. Viewers share family connections, suggest future stories and provide information that helps Tietz uncover more details about the people she features. She has also enjoyed being recognized in public by people who follow her work.
Although she typically explores cemeteries in northeastern South Dakota, her travels have taken her to Arlington Cemetery, Mexico, Canada, the Black Hills and Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. One memorable trip brought her to Corbeil, Ontario, Canada, to visit the burial place of Emilie, one of the Dionne Quintuplets, whose story has fascinated Tietz for years.
Finding new places to explore has become more challenging as she works through nearby cemeteries. She sometimes has to travel more than an hour in any direction to find a new one. Still, she hopes to visit more ancestral graves in small towns across the country, possibly travel to Norway and explore cemeteries in New Orleans and the northeastern United States.
She also hopes to gain permission to clean monuments at additional cemeteries and continue helping preserve local history for future generations.
Readers can follow Tietz’s cemetery explorations, historical stories and headstone cleaning projects on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. She is most active on Facebook at www.facebook.com/graveyardgirl1991.
