Gravely Speaking

The Clear Creek Cemetery is the burial place of Joseph August Bruner.  His gravestone is a non-descript red granite block that in no way indicates the monumental piece of granite he worked on for part of his stone carving career.

Joseph August Bruner, a French-born stone carver, met Gutzon Borglum in 1938 in Marietta, Ohio.  Borglum invited Bruner to come to South Dakota to help carve a mountain. Mr. Borglum was working on the monumental Mount Rushmore project which included four 60-foot tall, sculptured heads of the American presidents—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.  Bruner accepted the offer and became one of the more than 400 carvers who worked on Mount Rushmore until its completion in 1941.  Not only did each of the men who worked on the mountain have to be a skilled carver but they did so dangling from ropes on the side of the rock face to do the job—carver meets acrobat!

Most often, the gravestone marking a person’s grave does not give anything away about the person’s past exploits, careers, or loves, but maybe, just maybe, his small piece of granite that makes up Bruner’s gravestone is a nod to his work on a granite mountain side that pays tribute to America’s history.

The barren town of Tombstone, Arizona, was a rough and tumble outpost.  The city witnessed the notorious shootout at O.K. Corral and countless other killings that have become infamous.  The colorful epitaphs in the Boot Hill Cemetery are a testament to murders and shootings that took place on the streets and in the saloons of Tombstone.  The sheer number of people who were described as killed on their markers in the Boot Hill Cemetery can leave the passersby stunned. 

Lester Moore worked as a Wells Fargo Station Agent in the tiny town of Naco, Arizona, a little more than 30 miles from Tombstone sitting directly on the U. S.—Mexico border.  A dustup occurred when a dissatisfied customer, Hank Dustan, picked up a package.  Unfortunately, the packaged arrived at the Wells Fargo Station mangled.  Dustan was disgusted by the state of his package and complained loudly.  The argument with Moore turned heated very quickly and both men reached for their guns and shots rang out.  When the smoke cleared Dustan was killed with a shot to his chest and Moore was mortally wounded, too.  Moore’s body was taken to Tombstone for burial at the Boot Hill Cemetery where some wag painted his grave marker with what is perhaps the most famous epitaph in the Old West.  The grave marker reads: “HERE LIES Lester Moore, FOUR SLUGS FROM A 44, NO LES, NO MORE.”

No one knows where Dustan was laid to rest.

Buried beneath a wooden and hand painted grave marker in the dry, dusty, and famed Boot Hill Cemetery in a rocky grave is William Floyd “Billy” Claiborne/ Clayborne and a mystery. 

Clayborne was born on October 21, 1860, in Yazoo County, Mississippi, and was known to be a miner, outlaw, gunfighter, and cowhand. However, he is largely remembered for surviving what was arguably the most famous shoot out in the Old West—the legendary Gunfight at the O. K. Corral in the desolate hamlet of Tombstone, Arizona, on October 26, 1881.  Clayborne did not survive the shootout by heroics and superior gunplay but by ducking into the C. S. Fly’s Boarding House and Photography Studio to hide out.  His Cochise County Cowboy companions, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers, however, were not so lucky and were killed in the melee against the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday. 

A little more than a year after the infamous shootout, Clayborne publicly accused gunslinger Frank “Buskskin” Leslie of killing his friend Johnny Ringo, whose death had remained a mystery and remained unsolved.  On November 14, 1882, just outside the Oriental Saloon, a drunk Clayborne confronted Leslie.  Clayborne shot the first volley from his rifle but missed.  Leslie quickly returned fire and struck Clayborne directly in the chest.  Clayborne’s last words allegedly were “Don’t shoot me any more, I’m killed.” Clayborne survived six hours after the incident and was laid to rest in the town’s Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone.

There are some who say there is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the man buried under that wooden marker is William “Billy” Clayborne of Yazoo.  There is a marriage record that a William Floyd Claiborne married Hattie Barnton on January 27, 1887, in Yazoo County, Mississippi, and that that same Claiborne appeared on the 1910 Census as a widower with his children.

Leslie did shoot and kill a man named “Billy”, but was it William Floyd “Billy” Clayborne?  Another mystery of the Old West not solved to everyone’s satisfaction.

Rev. G. W. GALE  D.D.

DIED

SEPT. 13, 1861.

AE. 72 YEARS

Buried underneath a stained, faded, and eroded white marble obelisk resting on a plinth that bears his name, is George Washington Gale (December 13, 1789 – September 13, 1861), founder of Knox College and the namesake of Galesburg, Illinois.

Gale was an ordained Presbyterian minister who, though not a gifted speaker, had a following because of his plan to form a manual labor college.  The first subscribers signed up in 1837 in Knox County, Illinois, in what is now the city of Galesburg.

Galesburg was populated with like-minded abolitionists who made Galesburg one of the stops on the Underground Railroad.  Knox College is also famous for hosting the fifth U.S. Senatorial debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.

Though is gravestone is faded, his name lives on in the city that bears his name.

Wellington W. Washburn

September 18, 1836, Akron, Ohio

February 10, 1901, Galesburg, Illinois

By tradition, Wellington Washburn’s family can be traced back to their arrival in England with none other than William the Conqueror.  They were also early arrivals in America, settling in Duxbury, Massachusetts circa about 1628-32.

Wellington W. Washburn apprenticed as a jeweler’s learning the watchmakers’ and jewelers’ trade which is where he made his first fortune.  He later went into banking and construction, building many prominent buildings and homes in Galesburg, Illinois. 

Fittingly, his final resting place in the Hope Cemetery in Galesburg reflected his success—a tomb fit for a prominent citizen.  Find-a-Grave posted a newspaper article about the newly built Wellington Washburn mausoleum, “S. B. Davis has just completed a fine new mausoleum for W.W. Washburn, which has been placed in Hope cemetery and has attracted much attention.  The mausoleum, which is built in the shape of a chapel, is in design and construction one of the finest in this part of the country.  The handsome design was made by E. S. Regnier, and S. B. Davis constructed the monument.  The chapel is built of Bedford limestone, trimmed with Quincy granite.  The entrance is flanked by large granite columns, and along the sides are place dummy windows.

Two great brass doors, elaborately designed, open into the corridor.  The floor is of marble tile.  Marble wainscoting extends several feet along the sides.  There are six crypts in the mausoleum, and at the head of each a large marble plate for the carving is placed.

The ceiling of the structure is of one solid stone, which is carved appreciatively, and is in keeping with the remainder.

The tomb is 14 feet by 16 feet in size, and 15 feet high.  Its cathedral-like windows are carved from black granite.  One of the most attractive features is the tower, on the northeast corner, of the Normandie style of architecture.  Over the door the name “Washburn” is craved, and on each of the bronze doors is the letter “W”.

The entire effect of the structure is beautiful, and it includes in its architecture the latest and most up-to-date style in buildings of this description.  From its location at Hope cemetery, it is easily seen from Main Street and has had the admiration of many who have seen it.”

Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was born at Galesburg, Illinois, in a small three-room cottage. Sandburg is remembered as one of the most important literary figures of the Twentieth Century. He was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor winning three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of President Abraham Lincoln.

Carl Sandburg’s boyhood home in Galesburg is now operated by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency as an historic site, open for tours. The site contains the cottage Sandburg was born in and small garden with a large stone called Remembrance Rock with the inscription in bronze that reads, “FOR IT COULD BE A PLACE TO COME AND REMEMBER.”

Not only does the historic site preserve Sandburg’s birthplace but also serves as his burial place.  Carl Sandburg and his wife’s ashes are buried beneath the Remembrance Rock in the garden behind the cottage in which he was born.

W. H. RINEHART

BORN IN CARROLL Co. Md. 1825

DIED AT ROME ITALY. 1874

William Henry Rinehart was born September 13, 1825 and died October 28, 1874.  Rinehart was a classic American sculptor of note and buried in the Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.  Rinehart was buried under a sculpture of his own.

The figure atop his monument is the Greek mythological figure Endymion. Endymion was the beautiful shepherd who was loved by the Moon goddess, Selene (or Artemis). Noted for his beauty, Zeus granted eternal sleep and youth to Endymion and allowed Selene to visit him nightly.

John Keats immortalized Endymion in an 1818 poem:

There are people who achieve notoriety, sometimes for the good they do, sometimes for the opposite.  Whether good or bad, fame, or infamy as the case may be, has a price to be paid—even after death.

John Wilkes Booth, the brother of Edwin Booth, the most famous Shakespearean actor of his day, assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, shooting him in the back of the head at the Ford Theater on April 14, 1865.  Lincoln’s body was taken to a house across the street where he died from the gunshot wound early the next morning.  Booth was captured less than two weeks later and was shot in the neck while being pursued.  Booth was buried at the Old Penitentiary in Washington, D.C.  His body was moved, this time to a Washington Arsenal warehouse.  Later, in 1869, his body was released to the Booth family where it was finally laid to rest in an unmarked grave in the Booth Family plot in Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 26, 1869, four years later. Passersby now leave Lincoln-head pennies on what they believe to be his gravestone. Is it a tribute to Lincoln’s ongoing fame as a beloved fallen president or are the pennies a reminder of what Booth wrought?

Wyatt Earp, had many occupations during his lifetime—buffalo hunter, lawman, brothel and saloon keeper, and miner—but he cemented his fame at the shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. Earp died in 1929 at the ripe old age of 80, and was secretly buried at the Jewish Hills of Eternity Cemetery in Colma, California.  His cremains were placed there by Josephine, his fourth wife.  An attempt was made in the late 50s to dig up Earp’s cremains.  Fortunately, the grave robbers were unable to find them, so they stole the 500-pound gravestone instead.  This was the second or third time his gravestone was stolen.  One of his wayward gravestones was later found in a backyard in Fresno, California.  The current gravestone was placed on his grave in 1998 by Josephine’s descendants.

John Dillinger, arguably the most “famous” bank robber of the Depression Era, led a gang that went on a successful spree of bank robberies throughout the Mid-west—Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin—in 1933 and 1934.  Dillinger was famously caught coming out of a Chicago theater with the lady in red.  After law officials released his body to his family, he was buried in the Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, Indiana.  His casket was entombed in two and half tons of concrete and scrap iron to prevent grave robbers from disturbing his grave.  Even still, vandals have chipped off bits of his gravestone for keepsakes, and his gravestone has had to be replaced at least four times. The current gravestone has been marred by souvenir hunters as well.

The elaborate stained-glass window in the Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Colma, California, depicts the Virgin of Guadalupe, also referred to as Mother of Guadalupe and Our Lady of Guadalupe The figure of the Virgin of Guadalupe is framed by an ornate Gothic arch with pinnacles topped with crockets.  The Virgin of Guadalupe is the Patron Saint to of Mexico.

According to the Catholic Church, the Virgin of Guadalupe was first seen as an apparition the first of four times by Juan Diego on December 9, 1531.  Juan Diego described the woman in the vision as the Virgin Mary dressed in a cloak the color of the clear blue sky.  The cerulean cape was emblazoned with eight-point stars, and She was standing on top of a crescent moon being carried by a cherubic angel.

The Virgin Mary called out to Juan Diego and introduced herself as “the Mother of a very true deity.”  She asked that a church be built in her honor on that spot on Tepeyac Hill (now a suburb of Mexico City).  The humbled Juan Diego excitedly approached the Archbishop Juan de Zumarraga to tell him of the apparition and of the Virgin Mary’s request.

Unfortunately, the Archbishop did not believe Juan Diego.  A second time the Virgin Mary appeared before him.  Again, she made her request.  Juan Diego returned to the Archbishop and pleaded his case and insisted that the vision he had witnessed was real.  The disbelieving Fray Zumarraga instructed Juan Diego to ask this apparition for a sign to prove that She was real.  During his third visit of the Virgin, she agreed to supply the proof the very next day.

Leaving his uncle’s sick bed, Juan Diego hurried to meet with the apparition.  Upon seeing her for the fourth time, Diego apologized for being late and explained that his uncle was on his death bed and he had attended to him.  She assured him that his uncle had been healed.  The Virgin instructed Diego to go to the spot where he had first seen her to gather flowers.  Impossible, he thought, it was the dead of winter, but he followed her instructions and went to the top of Tepeyac Hill where he discovered blooming Castilian roses which he gathered into his winter cloak to show the Archbishop.  When he arrived to show the Archbishop the proof he opened his cloak and the roses fell to the floor and the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe was emblazoned on the fabric of his coat.

Depictions of the Virgin of Guadalupe are varied, sometimes the Virgin is standing on the half-moon carried by a cherub, sometimes shown as carrying the baby Jesus, but usually with the cerulean cloak and eight-pointed stars with rays of light behind Her—sometimes as an incised carving on a gravestone, sometimes as a free-standing sculpture.

The white marble tablet of Charles Samuel Morris in the Home of Peace Cemetery and Emanu-El Mausoleum in Colma, California depicts a winged Father Time as an old man, with a long beard and a large pair of wings. Father Time is standing with one of the tools of his trade that makes him instantly recognizable–a scythe. The scythe, a tool that was once used in the harvest, symbolizes the Divine harvest.  Just as wheat is cut down by the scythe during the harvest, so are souls by Father Time.  Also at Father Time’s feet is an hourglass.  The hourglass is a memento mori symbol—to remind all who pass by that life is ephemeral.   The soap opera, Days of Our Lives, has as their catchphrase,  “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.”  The meaning of that catchphrase is clear; life passes by very quickly.  Life measured by the grains of sand slip through one side of the hourglass to the other in a flash. 

Father Time is standing behind a “weeping virgin”. Father Time is delicately untangling the Virgin’s hair. The act of untangling represents that with perseverance all things can be accomplished. She is pointing to an open book, which most likely represents the Book of Life.  In Judaism and Christianity, the names of the righteous were recorded in the Book of Life; they were assured entry into Heaven.  The Book is referenced many times in the Bible (King James Version), including Revelations, Chapter 20,  Verse 12: “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God: and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead…Verse 15: “And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”

They both stand before a broken column, the symbol of a life cut short.