A Grave Concern: Faces from the past

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A Grave Concern: Still holding flowers

This statue was unmissable at Calvary Cemetery – it was clear from its wear that it was old, but someone had placed a bunch of orange faux flowers in its hand.

Lina May Xelowski died on her 2nd birthday. Based on the entry I found in John William Leonard’s The Book of Chicagoans (1917 volume), she was the daughter of surgeon Thaddeus Zigmund Xelowski, a graduate of the University of Illinois, and his wife Lina Bliss. Another entry in The Alumni Record of the University of Illinois (1921) confirms that she was the youngest of their three children.

There was no marker nearby with the Xelowski name to provide evidence her family was later buried with her, but someone comes and leaves flowers for her. Is it a relative, or just someone touched by the tragedy of a little girl who never got the chance to grow up?

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A Grave Concern: Faces from the past

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A Grave Concern: Might Wordless Wednesday

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A Grave Concern: Women’s faces from the past

The photos I have posted so far in my faces from the past photo series have been from stones for families, but I also have far more stones with portraits of individual women than individual men.

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A Grave Concern: IHS

The three letters IHS appear frequently on tombstones and other grave monuments. The letters come from the name of Jesus in Greek – IHSOYS (iota eta sigma omicron upsilon sigma) – IHS is merely the first three letters.

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A Grave Concern: The Z’s have it

It’s been a while, so I think it’s time for another post on unusual, obscure, or old-fashioned names.

The lighting makes it a little hard to read, but Zerviah was the wife of James Keyt, who lived from 1818-1902. The name Zeruiah (Zerviah) appears in the Bible as one of King David’s sisters.

I can’t find much agreement on the name Zula. It appears to have been a more common name in the 19th century. Origin theories in my brief research range from it being derived from the African Zulus to the name of a town on the Red Sea to being a name used in Spanish.

Zerusha is one of those names that I can’t find a meaning for, but I was able to find a number of references to 19th century women who bore the name. Some of the family genealogy sites seemed to suggest that it was a variant of the name Jerusha, which is biblical.

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A Grave Concern: Confused birds

I think these birds are a little confused – this statue is of St. Patrick, not St. Francis of Assisi. There was a brief moment where both birds were sitting on him at the same time, but I didn’t click the camera fast enough.

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A Grave Concern: More faces from the past

I noticed this on the post of these porcelain portraits last week with the Fifolts. If there is only one porcelain portrait on a marker for multiple people, it is likely to be for the youngest person, like teenager Joseph Siska.

With the empty oval at the top, I wonder if the man in the remaining photographs is the son rather than the father whose engraving it bumps into.

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A Grave Concern: Fostoria Zinkers

Fountain Cemetery in Fostoria had at least seven zinkers that I spotted while I was on my visit there – that puts it in the lead in the tally. The day was unbearably hot and the cemetery has limited shade in the old sections, so I only got photos of three, and there could have been some that I missed.

The Snaveleys have a small obelisk-style monument.

Grace and Mary Nelson (who I am guessing might have been half-sisters, based on the fact that they have the same father and two different mothers listed) have a monument with a book on pedestal.

The Helfer monument is in another shape that I’m not quite sure of the correct word for.

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