C. PENN WETTLAUFER

OCT. 9, 1935

JAN. 11, 2000

AGE QUOD AGIS

Conrad Penn Wettlaufer was a native son of Buffalo.  He hailed from a proud lineage descended from a signer of the Declaration of Independence and of William Penn, the namesake of the State of Pennsylvania.  According to his obituary, Wettlaufer was a “well-known local businessman, economic-development consultant, professor, and a member of a prominent Buffalo family.  He was also a “certified emergency medical services provider and an instructor in paramedic for many years.”

Wettlaufer’s light gray unpolished granite serpentine topped gravestone in the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York, features a bas-relief sculpture of a lone standing buffalo.  The only mention I can find in connection with funerary symbolism regarding a buffalo is found in the International Journal of Religion, 5(8), 179-190, where the indigenous Toraja people of Indonesia consider the buffalo as a marker of a person’s nobility or social status determined by how many buffalo are sacrificed at a person’s funeral.  It is doubtful that there is any connection between Mr. Wettlaufer and the indigenous people of Indonesia.  More likely the sculpture reflects his deep involvement in his community and his pride in his birthplace.

His obituary also mentions that Wettlaufer was a ferocious squash player.  So much, so, in fact, his fellow competitors referred to him as “The Czar.”  His epitaph, “Age Quod Agis” which roughly translates to “do what you are doing, concentrate on the task at hand, most likely refers to not only his intense focus on his community, but his fierce play on the squash court!