Basic German lesson

The most common language I run into in Ohio cemeteries after English is German. I took a little German college – two semesters as an undergraduate and then, as a graduate student, 1 semester of basic German structure so that I could translate academic articles with a German-English dictionary if I wanted to continue to a doctorate. It doesn’t help me puzzle out the elaborate poems that sometimes appear on tombstones, but I can handle the more basic things. “Hier ruht” translates to “here rests.”

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Unusual Names

I do so enjoy the unusual and old-fashioned names I find in cemeteries. I couldn’t find a meaning for the first one, Accious. I only was able to discover that it appears in other 19th century cemeteries like Adams Street Cemetery in Berea, where Accious Crane rests.

Olatippa Gilmore rests in Historic Hopewell Cemetery.

Abiah Cook sleeps in Olde Hudson Township Burying Ground.  Her name has the most interesting heritage of the unusual names today.  Abiah is a variant of Abijah, a Hebrew name borne by both men and women in the Bible.  It roughly translates to “God is my father.”

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Departed this life

One of the most common euphemisms for death that you find on tombstones is the phrase “departed this life.”  I found it on E. L. Crane’s tombstone in Adams Street Cemetery in Berea.

It’s on Louise Keppler’s tombstone on Erie Street Cemetery in Cleveland.

It appears on Mary Ann Matter’s tombstone in Old Carlisle Cemetery in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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A Grave Concern: Blessed are the dead

“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord” is a quote from the book of Revelations 14:13. It is an extremely popular epitaph in cemeteries. Most of the interpretations of the passage I have read focus on how the quote turns on its head what many people think about death – death is sad for those who love us and sometimes the result of suffering and pain for us, but here is a scripture talking about blessings at the time of death. The idea seems to be that those who have lived their life in faith and service to God will, when they die, be rewarded. The next passage, not quoted on this tombstone, says that the blessed dead will rest from their labors.

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A Grave Concern: Decay

I’ve always loved winter. My mother was a ski instructor for a number of years, and Dad is now Ski Patrol after many years as an instructor. Some of my enthusiasm for cold weather has dissipated now that I am the one who has to drive in it, but I still can’t deny that it looks beautiful. I spent my college years living in the snow belt and experiencing lake effect snow at Edinboro University, and I was by some strange twist of fate crowned Snow Queen my sophomore year (possibly the only one – I’m not sure that festival or the absurdly named Snow Ball dance happened ever again).

But in the cemetery, my enjoyment of the beauty of snow and ice is tinged on the edges with the knowledge that it could be damaging the stones. Snow and ice aren’t the only things that wear away at tombstones, but they dig at me because I so enjoy the look of them.

I know that as the snow melts and drips down into tiny crevices, if the temperature happens to dip to freezing again, the water will freeze and expand and push just a little at the stone, weakening it from the inside.

It is a bittersweet beauty to walk through an old, snow dusted cemetery and see the white blanket draped across the broken, cracked tombstones.

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Music appreciation?

In Berea, Adams Street Cemetery sits at a dead end nearby our friends’ home. Every year, they host a holiday party, the highlight of which is traveling through the neighborhood singing Christmas carols. The tradition includes stopping in front of the cemetery gates to sing “Silent Night.”

A few years ago, the carolers completed their serenade at the cemetery gates and suddenly, the street light went out.

According to those who were present, they had never seen a group of people depart a snowy sidewalk that fast.

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Indian Wars

This tombstone for Anthony Ruhl was replaced recently, as a result of research and restoration work done by students at nearby Baldwin-Wallace College. I had never seen a government-issue military tombstone that specified service in the “Indian Wars” before. The Indian Wars is an umbrella term that actually encompasses all of the armed conflicts between the colonial or federal government and Native Americans. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find much else out about Ruhl at this time. The college project is supposed to be ongoing, so hopefully there will be more available in the future.

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You say goodbye, I say hello…

We’ll start today with Louise Behnke’s broken tombstone in Adams Street Cemetery in Berea, Ohio, and its carved handshake. According to Douglas Keister’s Stories in Stone and numerous cemetery symbolism guides on the internet, carved hands that appear to be clasped or in the midst of a handshake indicate one of three things: earthly goodbye, heavenly greeting, or matrimony.

This monument for the Towns is in the Old Hudson Township Burying Ground.

Looking closely at the monument for Elizabeth Brown on the right in Historic Hopewell Cemetery, the words “Farewell mother” above the carving indicate that these clasped hands are clutched in farewell.

J. Monahan’s marker in Erie Street Cemetery features clasped hands.

It’s not really possible to distinguish whether the sculpture was thinking of goodbyes or hellos, but the third option (matrimony) is usually reflected by two different sets of cuffs on the wrists of the disembodied hands. One cuff will look more feminine and the other more masculine. It’s hard to tell if the Wolfs’ monument in Lakeside Cemetery includes a difference in the cuffs because of the wear on the marker.

The monument for the Casinos who died in the Cleveland Clinic disaster has very clearly differentiated feminine and masculine cuffs, implying that the clasped hands are there to let you know that the two buried here were married.

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Adams Street Zinkers

What I find so interesting about these zinc monuments is their distribution. According to the research I have done on the company, they had salesmen all across the country who attempted to persuade people to order the monuments from the options in the catalog. Then they submitted the order and the monument was made in Connecticut and shipped. But I haven’t seen enough zinkers in one geographic area to think that a salesman could make a living. Did they have very large sales areas, or was it not really a full time job? Or was the Cleveland area salesman just not very good?

The Adams Street Cemetery in Berea has two zinkers still standing:

I can only guess that this one not ordered immediately, as Lewis’ and his mother’s death dates do not match, but their information is cast right into the monument, not on a removeable panel.

I didn’t recongize this for what it was at the time I took the photograph, but I did take a shot that shows the screws on the panel, so I am able to confirm it is another zinker.

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Adams Street Cemetery in Berea

Adams Street Cemetery sits next to an American Legion post just as Adams Street in Berea makes an almost 90 degree turn. The cemetery is inactive and there are clearly many more graves than standing tombstones. The day we visited, there was a light snowfall, which revealed the neat lines of rectangles where graves unmarked by headstones lay. You can see some of them in the background of this photo:

The cemetery is fairly clean and free of trash and debris, but too much was probably already lost before anyone attempted to preserve it. Time and the elements have eroded and broken a number of the remaining monuments.

Past preservation efforts are in evidence here. There is a plaque erected by the Boy Scouts that explains the fate of some of the cemetery monuments: they were made of the sandstone found locally. Sandstone can be quite durable, but if moisture works its way in between the layers, they can separate and flake off.

There are also new stones for a number of the military veterans.

The old tombstones for some of these veterans were still lying next to their replacements.

Most of the burials are 19th century or very early 20th century, but there are a few later burials, including one from 1977.

Baldwin Wallace College has an ongoing project to preserve the cemetery and the history contained therein – more information here. I’m sure we’ll visit Adams Street Cemetery again.

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