ERNESTINE

WIFE OF HENRY O’HARA

DIED 14^TH OCTR. 1883;

AGED 26 YEARS

LAWRENCE

O’HARA

BORN 7^TH OCTR.;

DIED 8^TH OCTR. 1883.

ISABELLA

WIFE OF

HENRY O’HARA

DIED JUNE 26^TH 1887

AGED 31 YEARS.

“I AM THE RESURRECTION-

AND THE LIFE”

On top of a towering dark and white marble gravestone in the Brighton General Cemetery, in Brighton, Australia, a suburb of Melbourne, is a winged angel with her arm raised and her finger pointing toward the Heavens.

Without a closer look, one might miss that the angel holds a chubby little babe cuddled up in her other arm.  The angel here is depicted carrying the baby boy which represents the flight of infant boy’s soul to Heaven.

On the side of the gravestone the inscription tells the passerby that one-day old Lawrence O’Hara died on October 8^th, 1883.  Six days later, his mother, Ernestine O’Hara, died at the young age of 26 years old.    The sad and poignant story—one that was all too common in the 1800s—speaks to the danger of becoming a mother.  Women risked their lives in childbirth and some, as evidenced by this gravestone, didn’t live through the danger.

Four years later, Henry O’Hara lost his second wife, Isabella.  Isabella was only 31 years old, but the gravestone does not give any clues as to what might have been the cause of her death.