Memento Mori

In Memory of

Mrs. ABIGAIL GOBLE

who died in Oct.br 1742

Aged 62 Years

The Old Burying Ground at the Presbyterian Church at Morristown, New Jersey, is full of red slate gravestones, the most interesting of them by far is the gravestone of Abigail Goble, believed to be the oldest woman buried within the churchyard.  The image is dramatic.  In the right side of the top of the gravestone or the tympanum, out of the sculpted clouds of the Heavens, comes the hand of God wielding a hatchet. God’s axe has felled the Tree of Life!  The Tree is hacked down, life is over.  Over the top of the gravestone are the words “Memento Mori”.  This is a medieval reminder from the depths of the Black Death that swept through Europe to “remember death”.  Death was a constant and one must be prepared to die at any time.