Category Archives: Symbolism

The Hand-in-Heart symbol has significance with several organizations and religions, especially the Shakers, but when coupled with the three linked rings, it is associated with the Odd Fellows.  Even though, the marble gravestone in the photographs has eroded, the Heart-in-Hand … Continue reading →

In addition to the metal markers next to gravestones that signify Odd Fellows membership, gravestones are also carved with the symbolism of the association.  On this monument for Stephen and Mary Hoskin in the Fairmont Cemetery in Denver, Colorado, is … Continue reading →

Really?  This is what you want on your gravestone?  I barely know where to begin.  I imagine that this person loved to play the slot machines but “Winning in Heaven”?  There is so much that is wrong with the symbolism on … Continue reading →

II Samuel: Chapter 22, verse 29, “For thou art my lamp, O LORD: and the LORD will lighten my darkness.”  The light eminating from the lamp represents the pathway to Truth and to Knowledge.

When the Bostonian Brahmin, Amos Binney, died in Rome in 1847, his wife Mary Ann fulfilled a promise she made to him before his death–she would return his body to his beloved homeland.  Mary Ann commissioned Thomas Crawford, an impressive … Continue reading →

While monuments that portray infants in sea shells are not all that common, you can spot them.  This monument is in the Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia.  Baby Maurine, the infant son of R. P. and Anna A. Robbins, was … Continue reading →

The most poignant and tender gravestones are those for children.  When one wanders through pilgrim and pioneer cemeteries, you notice just how many children’s graves there are.  Infant mortality rates were extremely high.  In the 1850s, the mortality rates for … Continue reading →

Twining around mailboxes and fence rows, morning glories’ delicate tendrils gently cling, holding up their fragile flowers to open up to the summer sun.  Later at dusk their colorful flowers wither shut, a poet’s metaphor for life and death.  Because of it’s attention … Continue reading →

Next to the Burlington International Airport lies the Eldridge Cemetery, a small graveyard tucked in between a busy street and the airport.  Halfway back and on the right-hand side of the cemetery is the grave of Ruth A. Stuart Kimball, … Continue reading →

The lily, as a funerary symbol, has many meanings including purity, innocence, virginity, heavenly bliss, majestic beauty, and Christ’s ressurection.  Christians believe that the trumpet-shaped blossoms announce the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. As pictured in the stained-glass window above, the … Continue reading →