She gave unselfish love, her works praise her

Read Full Post »

Roots?

I will admit that I did not notice what I now find compelling about this particular monument myself. This photo is from the trip to Spring Grove that I took with my partner and a good friend the first weekend of December. It was the friend who noticed that the names of the family members, rather than being on separate little head- or footstones, were carved into the tree at the base, almost as if they were going down into the ground like roots.

It turns on its head the way that we usually think about roots and ancestry – a visual representation of that would involve the oldest generation of ancestors being down near the bottom and each successive generations’ names carved higher into the trunk and branches. This is certainly a different kind of family tree.

Read Full Post »

Hidden treasure

Recently, I visited Kirtland West Cemetery, and I found this old stone with a marvelously preserved carving.

Looking at the base of the tombstone, it appears that the stone might have been broken off at some point and spent time knocked over. The stone does have a distinct forward lean that the photos don’t show very well. It’s possible that the damage to the stone’s base might have allowed the beautiful carving to remain in such good condition.

Read Full Post »

Treestones

According to Stories in Stone, treestones emerged from the Victorian rusticity movement, that emphasized art and architecture derived from nature. Treestones are stone representations of tree stumps or trunks engraved with information about the deceased (and sometimes other symbols of their interests and activities). The stumps in particular are often considered to symbolize a life cut off short. Most of them date from the last two decades of the 19th century or the first decade of the 20th.

Read Full Post »