Not lost, blest thought,
But gone before,
Where we shall meet
To part no more.
Sentiments like the one on Mary Kellogg Ellsworth’s tombstone are common in cemeteries of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The epitaph emphasizes a belief in a shared afterlife where the surviving family and friends will be reunited with the dead. It conveys a message of hope: do not despair, she is not lost, just temporarily gone ahead.
A Grave Concern 