Author Archives: gravelyspeaking

Cherubim, part 2

Cherubim are one of nine orders or choirs of angels which are organized into three spheres, with three choirs in each sphere.  According to Christian tradition, the first sphere, which is made up of the Seraphim, Cherubim, and the Thrones, … Continue reading

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Cherubim

Cherubim, an order or choir of angels, are usually portrayed as chubby babies with wings.  In the angel hierarchy cherubim are considered to be in the second highest order of the nine orders of angels.  The Cherubim were sent to Earth to … Continue reading

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Mother and Daughter

In the Union Cemetery at St. Clairsville, Ohio, stands a lifesize white marble gravestone of a woman.  She is leaning against a post, holding a scroll in one hand and a wreath in the other.  The gravestone looks like a … Continue reading

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Baby Shoes and Socks!

A pair of shoes often memorializes the grave of a child.  In this case, the pair of shoes marks the grave of a one and a half-year girl named Eleanor buried in the Oakland Cemetery at Atlanta, Georgia.  The headstone forms … Continue reading

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Baby Shoes

There are many symbols that represent the young in funerary art—the broken bud, the lamb, and shoes.  A pair of shoes, reminiscent of the baby shoes that so many parents have bronzed, represents the loss of a child.  Sometimes one … Continue reading

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Double scroll

This monument of cast zinc in the Union Cemetery at Morristown, Ohio, marks the graves of a mother and a father, Jonathan and Mariah Carpenter.  The monument features two scrolls side by side.  The scroll is a symbol that has … Continue reading

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Same Statue, Different Base

The Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, produced white bronze cemetery markers and monuments to order—none of the monuments were premade.  The customer put together a marker paging through a catalog, choosing the frame, the panels, the epitaph, and the inscription.  … Continue reading

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Praying child, A closer look

KATIE L. McCARTY DAUGHTER OF E.E. & S.F. McCARTY DIED AUG. 26, 1882 AGED 13 YRS 4 MOS 19 DYS A closer look at the zinc monument of Katie McCarty portrays an innocent young child in image and word. The … Continue reading

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Praying Child

The Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, produced white bronze cemetery markers and monuments in a wide assortment of sizes and shapes.  The markers they produced often mimicked the gravestones that were being produced in stone.  What traditional stone carvers … Continue reading

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Our Drummer Boy

The Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, produced “white bronze” cemetery markers and monuments in a wide assortment of sizes and shapes including statues like the one produced for and in the likeness of 12-year old Clarence Mackenzie found at the … Continue reading

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