Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord

The epitaph I have seen more than any other in cemeteries across Ohio and Pennsylvania is this: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.” It is a quote from the Biblical book of Revelations, and the entire verse, at least in the American Standard Version is:

And I heard the voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; for their works follow with them.

It is a verse of hope and consolation, reassuring loved ones that sincere Christians who died had passed to peace and rest with God.

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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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Jacob Bender, MD

According to the History of Cumberland and Adams Counties (Pennsylvania) published 1886. A descendant of German immigrants who gave their surname to Bendersville, Pennsylvania, Bender attended the Pennsylvania College of Homeopathic Medicine, graduating in 1862 and almost immediately being appointed assistant surgeon of the 29th Pennsylvania Volunteers. He was with the regiment at such battles as Lookout Mountain, Kenesaw Mountain, and Gettysburg, as well as being on Sherman’s march to the sea. When the war ended, he traveled west and continued his medical practice in the areas of Colorado and Nebraska before returning to Pennsylvania and settling in the town Carlisle. In 1876 he married one of Carlisle’s daughters, Laura Conlyn, and the two had one daughter, Esther.

The Esther of their marriage does not appear to be the Esther on the tombstone, considering that the tombstone Esther lived for a year or less. I suspect she is a granddaughter or great-granddaughter. Esther, the daughter, is buried with her husband next to them.

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A Grave Concern: For in that sleep of death what dreams may come…

There is a recurring metaphor in our culture of death as sleep, and it shows up in cemetery epitaphs. Guy and Carrie Kittell’s epitaphs both refer to sleep. His is “Just like going to sleep” and hers is “If I should sleep till morning, do not wake me up.”

Elizabeth Waggoner’s family inscribed her tombstone to advise us that “She is not dead, but sleepeth.”

The Gerhardts’ have a similar epitaph.

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A Grave Concern: Another drummer boy?

I originally snapped this photograph rather unthinkingly, as I do tend to photograph any stone that has a GAR marker next to it Someone else pointed out to me the date, so I walked around to the other side, expecting to find Alex’s father or uncle was of an age more likely to have served in the Civil War. Instead, I found what is more likely to be his son, who died in France during the First World War.

So was Alex Thompson, who was born in 1852 and therefore would have been only about 13 at the close of the war in 1865, really a veteran of the Grand Army of the Republic? He is buried, after all, only a stone’s throw from Charles Seebold, who was a drummer for the 1st United States Cavalry when he died at age 14 or 15 in 1864, and the National Civil War Museum displays stated that the youngest documented drummer boy was only 9.

Or, as sometimes happens, is the GAR marker there for an otherwise unmarked burial of a Civil War veteran?

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A Grave Concern: McKinley Wordless Wednesday

Daniel McKinley, D. D.
died Dec. 7, 1855 in the 55th year of his age.
He was an eminently zealous and successful minister of the Gospel of Christ and labored various periods as pastor of Presbyterian congregations in Bedford, Carlisle, Chambersburg, Pittsburg and as agent of the Boards of Foreign and Domestic missions of the Presbyterian Church.
Erected by members of the Presbyterian Congregation in Chambersburg, his longest pastoral charge.

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A Grave Concern: Revolutionary War veteran shelled during Civil War

I’m sure the family of William Blair thought his fighting days were through by 1863. After all, by the outbreak of the Civil War, the veteran of the American Revolution had been dead for 59 years. But Mr. Blair took one more shot in the Civil War – or rather, his tombstone did.

The hole that damaged William Blair’s tombstone was caused when Confederates entered Carlisle during the Gettysburg campaign of 1863. Although the only major battle was fought a bit south in Gettysburg, there were skirmishes along the west shore of the Susquehanna River at several different points. During one of these, the tombstone was struck.

At some later point, Blair’s tombstone was reset in a a larger monument. The larger stone contains his name and birth and death years as well as the notation that the damage to the original stone was caused during the Civil War. The walking tour distributed for the cemetery cautions visitors not to stick their fingers in the hole, as it is apparently a frequent home for wasps.

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A Grave Concern: Hush, little baby…

The architecture on graves like these – a little fenced enclosure – is called a crib. Despite the association that you might initially have, a crib grave is not necessarily for an infant or child. It probably is meant to convey a sense of comfort and security on those who come to visit a deceased love one, though. Our cribs that we slept in as infants were places where we were warm and safe, carefully watched over by guardians.

As I said before, despite its strong harkening to infancy, the crib grave design is used for adults as well as children.  Most cribs I have seen date to the 19th century.

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A Grave Concern: Is that so?

Whenever I stroll through a cemetery that has tombstones from the 19th century, I think of an story one of my women’s history professors in graduate school told me.

As my professor told it, when she became interested in women’s history while in college, one of her history professors tried to discourage her. After various arguments as to why women did not constitute a worthy area of historical interest, he concluded with a declaration about how women’s history couldn’t be done anyway because women change their names when they marry and there is no way to trace them. Now there are plenty of ways in which I could dispute that old curmudgeon’s theories about women’s history and the possibility of studying women, but the I mostly just chuckle at the ludicrous idea that women’s history will run aground because women change their names at marriage. (We’ll leave aside that name-changing is culture-specific rather than universal.) After all, it’s not like there are government documents or possibly even tombstones where women’s names before and after marriage might be recorded, right?*

*Heavy sarcasm alert.

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A Grave Concern: Back from vacation

Got back from vacation yesterday, and it was a great vacation for a cemetery blogger. We visited south central Pennsylvania and stayed with my family. Cemetery-wise, I visited Harrisburg Cemetery, Old Carlisle Graveyard, the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, and Memorial Park in Carlisle (formerly Lincoln Cemetery). I didn’t get much time to walk through and take photographs, but I also saw Lincoln Cemetery in Mechanicsburg, Lincoln Cemetery in Gettysburg, and Evergreen Cemetery in Gettysburg. The Lincoln cemeteries were all African-American burial grounds. Of course, the National Civil War Museum and the National Military Park will also provide blog fodder. Unfortunately, we couldn’t figure out how to get close enough to the Carlisle Indian School Cemetery this time.

I also picked up books on the history of Gettysburg’s Evergreen Cemetery and Lincoln Cemetery.

Oh, and I realized I also forgot the anniversary of the blog on April 5th. Happy blog-iversary to me!

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