Ernest McClintock

I tried to find out more information about PFC McClintock, but almost everything you can find online for the 83rd Division is about their World War II service.  The one consistent piece of information I discovered was that most of the soldiers were from Ohio.  Perhaps in a few years when more resources go online, I’ll be able to learn more about this soldier.

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Little stars

I find a lot of little five-pointed stars on cemetery monuments. Based on a little bit of research, five-pointed stars often are supposed to symbolize Christ, specifically the five wounds of Christ from the crucifixion.

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AuVergne

The name on this stone caught my eye because I had never seen it before. My great-grandfather was LaVergne, a name that I don’t usually see applied to men, but I’ve never seen AuVergne before. While researching the name, I found out that it’s actually is the name of a historic province and now a region in France. Because of that, almost all of the links I could find were about the place, rather than establishing for me whether the name was more popular in an earlier time or whether this person had an unusual name, possibly harkening back to the French place.

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Liaison Pilot

When I found this tombstone, I didn’t know what a liaison pilot was in World War II. Liaison pilots were mostly enlisted men who flew small, unarmed aircraft to support military operations. Think missions like supply runs, transporting officers or reconnaissance missions. It is sadly no surprise that SSgt. Williams lost his life doing this job.

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Timothy Martindale

Timothy Martindale, a young man from the Great Lakes region, died miles away from home and family in the sweltering heat of a Georgia August. (I used to visit family in Georgia in late July and early August – I referred to Atlanta in the summer as hell.) I don’t know whether he died of wounds or disease, but his unit, the 1st Ohio Light Artillery, Battery C, was engaged in the siege of the city of Atlanta at the time of his death.

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Thomas Thomas

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Lovers of truth

True followers of Christ

Lovers of truth

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John’s son John

One of my geeks is name history – how names have evolved and changed over time.  And a lot of surnames were once standardized ways of indicating familial relations by taking the father’s name.  When my brain isn’t reeling over ways that we have taken surnames that start with “mc” (or “mac”) and therefore once meant “son of” into names for cute baby girls, I am amused by names like the one on this tombstone.  (By the way, I take heart that most of the kids who would tease the little girls for having a “boy’s name” don’t know what I know about the history of the name.)  The most obvious formation to indicate “son of” is affixing “son” to the end of the name.  So way back in time, the first Williamson in a family line was just a guy whose father was named William.  Same for Robertson, Richardson, Johnson…  As surnames became more static, the name passed down through the generations even though each individual person who bore it was not the son of a man with that name.  So I don’t truly know if this tombstone is for a man who shared his name with his father, but it could be.

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Old-fashioned names

Kirtland Historic North Cemetery is chock-full of interesting and unusual names.

Arcelia, to be fair, is not an unusual name everywhere. It is a Spanish given name for women and a place in Mexico, but it’s not really a name you expect to see in rural 19th century Ohio. The online baby name sites say that it means “treasure” or “altar of Heaven.”

There’s also Octalana Carter. I wonder if she was the 8th child in her family.

Anathusa is another name that I can find other examples of but not necessarily a derivation for.

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Life was his craft

It cannot be easy to come up with an epitaph that will speak across the years to people who might not have known the deceased. I find this one compelling: “Life was his craft.”

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