Greatness by association

When a tombstone includes someone’s real name, it can be revealing. I particularly like when the individual is named for someone famous.

In Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery, you can find the grave of Thomas Jefferson Henderson.

Florence Nightingale Houck lies in Harrisburg Cemetery.

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Ulysses S. Grant Fisher is buried in Silver Spring Presbyterian Churchyard.

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Uncommon names

Anyone who has read my blog knows that I am fascinated by names.

I’ve not encountered the name Wreathel before, and it seems to be obscure enough that even the baby name sites don’t invent an origin for it. A few women with this name popped up in my search, but not many. Maybe I’ll find more later.

Kazimiera is the feminine version of the Slavic name Kazimierz (usually Anglicized Casimir).

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Alphabet game – D, E, F

My cemetery alphabet game continues.

The Dusenburys are in Chester Township Cemetery.

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The Eidam monument is in Warrensville East Cemetery.

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The Fitch family is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.

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Names

I found two particularly interesting names when I visited Big Spring Presbyterian Cemetery. The first one, Abbidora, I can’t find anything about online. Now, not everything is on the internet (gasp!) but when I did a Google search for the name, the only Abbidora I found was…this one, on a cemetery transcription project website. I’m guessing that it’s probably a compound name made from two more common names, but that’s just an assumption.

Fleeta is also an unusual name where I live, but not nearly so obscure. All the baby names websites that track name popularity in history showed that “Fleeta” appeared on the top 1000 baby names in the United States in the 1890s. (Not high up in the top 1000, mind you – it was definitely towards the bottom.) With it being less popular, none of them I checked even attempted to provide a meaning.

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More symbols than you can shake a stick at

Dennis Jon Walker’s tombstone is so dense with information about him that I stopped the car to see it.  On top, in addition to his name and dates of his birth and death, you get his nickname and the important familial relationships in his life.

I’m going to assume that the hose, hoe, and rake are representative of an interest in gardening or landscaping, and I think that the phrase under the globe is “world traveler.”  Clearly, dirt and dust are not friendly to this artwork.  And his career – a UPS worker, it appears.

And on this side, we have hobbies – biking and fishing.  The Ohio State symbol – an alumnus, or just a sports fan?

And on the front, a nicely artistic integration of yet another interest, photography, with his portrait.

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Lodemia

I tried to find information on the name Lodemia, since I had never heard it. Google mainly showed me individual people in a few southern and Midwestern states with the name. According to this website, as of February of 2011, there were 11 people with the name in the United States.

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Nicknames

I know exactly why I took this photograph. “Whitey” was not just Lewis Wagner’s nickname, it was also my maternal grandfather’s. I’ve posted before about how fascinating I find names, and that includes nicknames. I suppose my grandfather could have gotten the name “Whitey” from a brief period of time where he had white hair, but the photos I have seen of him indicate he began losing his hair fairly young and took the same approach my middle brother has to the problem – purposely buzzing or shaving the remaining hair makes it much less obvious how much of it has disappeared.

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Frederick and Fredericka?

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Charlie

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, I wanted to post a photo of the new tombstone that was recently erected for Pauline Cushman and Charles Dickinson’s eldest child, their son, Charlie. With his father’s death and mother’s career as a spy and then lecturer, Charlie was living with extended family when he passed away at the age of 6. He rests in Woodland Cemetery next to his father.

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So, do you send out forwarding address cards?

So, in East Cleveland Cemetery, I’ve already posted photos of this obelisk.

I started out trying to find out if this obelisk in Woodland Cemetery was for descendants of the original family in East Cleveland.

Then I realized that the names and death years matched on one panel. It appears that at some point, the Edwards’ descendants erected a monument for them in Woodland Cemetery, and possibly moved the remains from East Cleveland. Then they continued adding other family members to the new monument and buried them in the family plot at Woodland Cemetery.

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