Help me out here

So help me out here. I’ve been trying to figure out the name of the farm where this young man died.  I think it’s a capitalized proper noun.  If it helps to know, this photograph is from Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, and the year of death is 1822, so the location would have existed in the early days of Cincinnati or the outlying areas.

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A bow-tie?

You tell me – is that a bow tie?

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How did he die?

Even though it’s mostly worn away, you can tell that below G.W. Wing’s name, there was information about what unit her served in during the Civil War. Even if that information wasn’t on there, I have only ever seen the flag that is carved above his name on the graves of soldiers. The interlocked rings probably symbolize membership in a fraternal organization. He also died during the war, on October 1, 1863, but the tombstone doesn’t tell us how. Statistically, it’s likely he died of disease, but without more information, I’ll probably never know.

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Beneath my feet and enigmatic face…

I don’t know any more about this monument than what is engraved on the stone. Davis Lawler erected it in memory of his parents – why a Sphinx made an appropriate monument to them, I don’t know. But then, that’s kind of appropriate, isn’t it?

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Like father and mother

Cemeteries are windows to the past, but sometimes they are somewhat clouded and cracked, so that the past we conjure up is cloudy or incomplete. I considered using this stone for a Wordless Wednesday post but then I realized I have questions that I wanted to ask about it. The monument stands to Barbara and Jacob Miller in Forest Lawn Cemetery and looks unremarkable for its time and place – the metal plaque with the deceased’s faces on it is a little more rare. But it was the epitaph that intrigued me.

Like father and mother they remembered us in life. We will not forget them in death.
Mr. and Mrs. Capt. J.B. Souter

Who were the Millers and the Souters? What relationship did they have? The epitaph strongly implies that the Souters erected the Millers’ monument, a task usually carried out by family. Did the Millers have family that couldn’t or wouldn’t take care of the arrangements? Or were the Souters and Millers related, just not immediate family to one another?

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I got a brand new pair of roller skates…

I want to know why there are roller skates on this tombstone. It calls to mind one of the words of wisdom from the seniors the year I was a freshman in high school: “Leave them laughing or leave them wondering what the heck you meant.”

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Random statuary

This statue sits in part of Markillie and St. Mary Cemeteries in Hudson, Ohio. It’s rather small – no more than a few feet high. (I wish I had photographed something else next to it for scale. It is also extremely unclear what family plot it is supposed to go with.

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Aged 0 years?

I have stared and stared at the scroll hanging below the urn on this monument, and what I am seeing doesn’t make sense. What I can make out is

Died
July 29,
1879
Aged
0 Y’rs
6 Mo’s

But it doesn’t make sense. Why would you list out the fact that someone had not lived a year? So either this is a very unusual monument or the number in front of the zero has been damaged or broken off. I tried looking at http://www.findagrave.com in hopes that they would have a detail shot that showed an obscured digit, but the photos I found didn’t look any different.

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A Grave Concern: Another mystery

This stone intrigued me because there aren’t a huge number of large memorials with multiple adult names on them in any cemetery, yet alone one to a school. I’ve not come up with a lot of information so far. At the time of the Colombian Exposition (1893), there was an Epheta School for the Deaf, and a few sources mention the school and a St. Joseph’s Home as being one and the same, but I haven’t found anything very concrete on them.

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A Grave Concern: Whose epitaph is it anyway?

My initial conclusion when I saw this stone was that the epitaph was a hymn or poem written by the deceased, one Rev. Thomas F. Troy. On a whim, though, I searched for some of the lines of the epitaph. The epitaph is two stanzas lifted from a poem called “We Lay Us Down to Sleep” by Louise Chandler Moulton (1835-1908).

We lay us down to sleep,
And leave to God the rest,
Whether to wake and weep
Or wake no more be best.

Why vex our souls with care?
The grave is cool and low,—
Have we found life so fair
That we should dread to go?

We’ve kissed Love’s sweet, red lips,
And left them sweet and red:
The rose the wild bee sips
Blooms on when he is dead.

Some faithful friends we’ve found,
But they who love us best,
When we are under ground,
Will laugh on with the rest.

No task have we begun
But other hands can take:
No work beneath the sun
For which we need to wake.

Then hold us fast, sweet Death,
If so it seemeth best
To Him who gave us breath
That we should go to rest.

We lay us down to sleep,
Our weary eyes we close:
Whether to wake and weep
Or wake no more, He knows.

The initials TFT after the epitaph are interesting. They seem to be the deceased’s and are definitely not the poet’s. Was Troy fond of this poem? Did he quote it often? Did someone who helped select the monument for Rev. Troy mistakenly believe the poem was his work and not simply something he found meaningful?

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