Be ye also ready

Dr. Gideon Case died May 15th, 1822 in the 44th year of his age.
Be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

It’s hard to provide an exact citation for Dr. Case’s epitaph. Versions of the phrase appear in translations of the Biblical Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and those words then spun off into hymns, sermons, and religious tracts. Whatever the route by which epitaph came to Dr. Case’s tombstone, it is a reminder to the passerby that it is important to attend to the care of his soul today, since there may not be a later time to do so.

Rider Wordless Wednesday

Drummer boy

When I see a tombstone like this, it really highlights how different the culture I live in is from that of people who lived in the same place just one or two hundred years ago. When I was 14, I was finishing middle school and going into high school, going to dances, playing soccer, singing in the choir and playing violin. My brother had different hobbies, but his fourteenth year followed the same basic pattern. There was a war going on then, thousands of miles away in a place called Kuwait that I don’t think I’d heard of before, but there was no one I had ever met fighting in it and no real concern that my brother or I would be affected by that war, and we definitely had no chance of fighting in it until we were at least 18. But when Stephen Thompson Jr. was fourteen, he was a drummer boy in a war that was happening around him. Even if he hadn’t chosen to join the army, his life would have been altered by the hostilities.

An unusual double stone

Susan, Daughter of A. & S. Thompson died Sept 12, 1814. Aged 5 years.
an infant son died Oct. ?

I’ve written about double stones before, where the stone looks like two tombstones with the same outline are mashed together to form one that is symmetrical. Usually, the writing on the stone is also done in this symmetrical pattern: if we could somehow magically slice the tombstones apart, each side would look like a perfectly normal single stone. This one is different, with the inscriptions for both Susan and her unnamed brother carved across the entire width of the stone.

The 7th son

Beneath this stone lie buried the mortal remains of Watson, 7th son of Owen Brown & 1st son of Owen & Sally Brown, who was born at Hudson on the 22nd day of July 1813, and died on the 29th day of J? 1833 AE 18 years.

He was a kind-hearted, generous, and manly youth who, by his mild and amiable character was endeared to his numerous friends. Cut off in the spring time of life.

AE

You can pretty easily derive the meaning of AE when it appears like this on a tombstone: clearly, it signifies “aged,” as in aged a certain number of years at death. In Latin, “anno aetatis suae” means “in the specified year of a person’s age.” AE, which should actually be squished together so that the rightward most stroke of the A is also the vertical line of the E, is an abbreviation for that.

When you behold this speaking stone

When you behold this speaking ston
Remember what it says
Im[illegible] momets as they run
And walk in wisdom ways.

I love the beginning of this epitaph – the phrase “speaking stones” perfectly conveys what I see when I walk around a cemetery. Tombstones may seem silent and cold, but they are in fact full of stories if you know how to read them. I always thought I wanted to be a teacher (later specifically a history teacher), and some part of that is still in my heart. Were someone ever to give me the opportunity to teach a group of students about United States history for a few weeks or months, I would definitely take all those kids off to a cemetery to explore. (Of course, that’s not likely to happen anytime soon, so I’m resigned to dragging along unsuspecting friends.) My only regret is that the wear on the tombstone obscures the third line.

Barnett Brickner

Rabbi Barnett R. Brickner was the rabbi of Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple, the oldest Jewish congregation in Cleveland, from 1925 until his death in 1958. Brickner was a prominent figure in not only in the Cleveland Jewish community, but in national and sometimes international affairs. During his tenure as the rabbi of Anshe Chesed, he increased its membership to the point that it became the largest Reform Judaism congregation in the world. He founded a Zionist organization called Young Judea, was a founder of the National Jewish Education Association, and was a labor arbiter in addition to a rabbi. He served as president of the Cleveland Bureau of Jewish Education and the Cleveland Zionist Association. During World War II, he served as the chairman of the committee that oversaw Jewish chaplains and toured the war front to report on the troops and chaplains for the president, duties for which he became the first rabbi to receive the Medal of Merit. At the age of 65, Rabbi Brickner died of injuries sustained in car accident in Spain. The epitaph in English reads “Thou hast made him little less than God, thou hast crowned him with glory and honor.”

O death! Where ends thy strife?

O death! Where ends thy strife?
In everlasting life.

I found the epitaph on this tombstone in a 19th century periodical called The Casket, or, Flowers of Literature, Wit, and Sentiment. It was part of a piece entitled “Questions and Answers” by a James Montgomery. An epitaph coming from a publication called The Casket struck me as funny.

Allen Wordless Wednesday