If you look at the vast majority of tombstones, there isn’t much information there. So anything that is on there must be important. Particularly in older graveyards, there is a significant emphasis on place – place of birth, place of residence, or place of death.
In Erie Street Cemetery, we are provided almost a map of movement westward with the grave of Esther Clampett, formerly of New Jersey and then Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Kepplers were immigrants from Germany and France.
Immigrant John Cubben was born on the Isle of Man.
Does place hold the same significance for us now, in a world where I could visit the places listed on all three of these markers in a matter of days with an ambitious flight itinerary and money for the tickets?
A Grave Concern 