A handshake

The handshake symbol on tombstones often survives beyond the words because the carving is so deep. A symbol of either earthly farewell or heavenly greeting, it is an image that isn’t seen much on tombstones beyond the early 20th century.

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Where I went

I last took a look at the cemetery symbolism of the upright fist with the pointer finger extended in Going Up. I wanted to share some more photos that I have found of this symbol, since it is one of the most common to find in Ohio from the 19th century.

Matilda Escott and her daughter Caroline died in the 1860s, and the finger points upward to heaven, where the remaining family no doubt believed they ascended. They rest in Fort Meigs Cemetery in Perrysburg, Ohio.

In Ashtabula’s Chestnut Grove Cemetery, we find Martha, whose surname I could not read. Her family wanted visitors to know that she was heaven-bound.

Alice Stork’s body rests in Oxford Cemetery, Ohio, but her parents placed a marker with this symbol, showing that her soul was elsewhere.

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Where is my hand?

This statue in Woodland Cemetery for Mary Monroe Keokee has had an unusual existence. It has been stolen and returned twice, necessitating the plexiglass case that now protects it from would-be thieves and vandals. According to one of the volunteers that I spoke to at the cemetery, one of its disappearances lasted more than a decade. Unfortunately, one one of those adventures, the statue lost her right hand.

This, according to the woman I spoke to, is the focus of the ghost’s concern when she manifests. The volunteer told me that she had visited the statue before and felt the woman asking “where is my hand?”

"She blooms in the fields of light."

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Hidden treasure

While doing the Historic Cleveland Scavenger Hunt at Woodland Cemetery, I was searching for an epitaph on a particular stone, came around the corner, and gasped at this lovely, fairly well-preserved tombstone.

A lot of tombstones of this material and age are worn and difficult to decipher, but I am guessing that the particular location and possibly the surrounding vegetation have provided some protection from the elements.

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Poignant

Sometimes a tombstone calls to me, and I just have to go and take a photograph of it. That was how I felt when I was leaving East Cleveland Township Cemetery on my last visit and my eyes fell on this stone for two children.

Maybe it was the relatively intact porcelain portrait of young Michael Moyer, or the tragedy of the damage to little Eva Moyer’s portrait. Maybe it was the German inscription on the top, reassuring that “Jesus loves the children,” or the heavenly handshake inscribed above their names. I just knew that I had to go look at it, photograph it, and share this tombstone with others, so that little Eva and Michael would be remembered a little longer.

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Scavenger Hunt

I did this scavenger hunt that was posted to the Association of Graveyard Rabbits, although I didn’t get the post written before the deadline for the carnival itself. I twisted my ankle walking around Union Cemetery doing the carnival and then limped my way around Origins gaming convention for four days.

All scavenger hunt photos were taken this past Wednesday morning at Union Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio. Below I’ve listed the scavenger hunt item and then a photo of the grave marker that fulfilled that requirement.

Cross – The Birk monument culminates in a cross.

Heart – This very worn marker for a baby named Paul is heart-shaped. I can’t even make out his surname.

Fraternal symbol – For the fraternal symbol, we have the marker for Frank P. Walters, a Marine who served in the first World War and has a Masonic symbol on his tombstone.

Monument – This seemed so general that I decided to feature the Gaddis family marker. A metal sundial sits atop the center column.

Flower – A carved flower decorates the top two corners of the Hagans’ stone.

Hand – The gravestone for Amanda Evans includes a single hand holding the stem of a flower.

Angel – The names of the two Cooper children are flanked by praying angels.

Bird – A bird, likely a dove, is carved into baby William Wiedemann’s tombstone.

Tree – A weeping willow grows on the tombstone of John Lisle, whose 1808 burial must have been one of the earliest in the graveyard, which was only founded two years before.

Star – I wandered around looking for a star for while before it dawned on me that the Civil War veterans’ markers contain or are stars, like these two for George Lakin.

Obelisk – This obelisk memorializes the Lakin family.

Four-legged animal – The marker for little Mildred Ferguson, who sadly did not live to see her 2nd birthday, is topped by a lamb – a four-legged animal.

Photo – Dorothy Price Walsh’s tombstone preserves her likeness for us.

Military gravestone – For the military tombstone, I found the memorial for Medal of Honor recipient Joel Parsons, a Civil War veteran.

Mausoleum – Amaranth Abbey is a giant mausoleum.

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Going up

Anyone who has walked a 19th century cemetery has seen the single upright hand with three fingers and thumb folded down on the palm while the pointer finger gestures straight up, like on the tombstone for Kezia Edwards in Doty Settlement Cemetery. Just a few tombstones away, Nathanial Moore is remembered with the same symbol.

The hand, and specifically the outstretched finger, are a representation of the soul ascending to heaven. The example below is from the Olde Hudson Township Burying Ground.

Unfortunately, like other relatively thin pieces of cemetery sculpture, that outstretched finger sometimes gets damaged or broken off. The finger on Isaac Weakley’s stone in Old Carlisle Burying Ground seems awfully stubby.

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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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