THAT BEST PORTION

OF A GOOD MAN’S LIFE:

HIS NAMELSS UNREMEMBERED ACTS

OF KINDNESS AND LOVE 

Charles Webster Shippey was a real estate dealer who was struck down by a locomotive killing him just a few feet away from the station where he was to board a train.  According to the August 13, 1906 edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune, Shippey was crossing the tracks to climb aboard a train to carry him to join his family who were already vacationing.  He was buried in Grand Haven, Michigan and likely his remains were removed and reburied in the family plot in Chicago’s Rosehill Cemetery.

The Shippey Family monument is a sculpture of a hooded female figure holding a scroll. The scroll represents both the life of the deceased and the time spent on Earth. Like so much symbolism found in the cemetery, the scroll can have many meanings.  The scroll likely represents the life of the deceased that has come to an end and been recorded by the angels.

CHARLES WEBSTER SHIPPEY

1858 – 1906

LULU SHIPPEY SHIPPEY

1862 – 1941

WEBSTER B. SHIPPEY

1896 – 1981

RAYMONDE SHIPPEY SCHOBINGER

1898 – 1991

The monument was carved by Nellie Verne Walker.  Walker was a protégé of the great American sculptor Lorado Taft.  She was born December 8, 1874, in Red Oak, Iowa. She first picked up a hammer and chisel in her father’s Moulton, Iowa, shop carving gravestones. But, by age 17 she carved her first work of art—a limestone bust of President Abraham Lincoln. In a mere 24 days, she had created the bust for the Columbian Exposition being held in Chicago in 1893. Her first piece is now on display in the Moulton City Library.