Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Above a cherub blows the trumpet as he looks back as if he is beckoning others to follow him.
On the monument below, the angels is blowing the trumpet, announcing the Day of Judgment and the Call to Resurrection.
Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Nashville, Tennessee
Frankfort Cemetery, Frankfort, Kentucky
Carved into this bas relief, is the image of an angel holding a baby in her arms. While angels are God’s messengers, in this case, the angel is carrying the soul of the child to Heaven.
Frankfort Cemetery, Frankfort, Kentucky
Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D.C.
In keeping with the book theme of the past couple of days on the blog, carved on the top of this gravestone is an elaborately carved crown resting on a closed book with the following epitaph:
“YE SHALL RECEIVE A CROWN OF GLORY, THAT FADETH NOT AWAY.”
In some cases, a closed book, can represent the end of the story, or as in this case, the closed book symbolizes the Bible. The clencher clue here are the two words, Holy Bible, carved into the spine.
The crown represents the reward of Heaven. I often heard my Mom or Dad say, “There’s going to be an extra jewel in their crown when they get to Heaven” when they were talking about someone who had done something extra generous for someone else; something that really put the person out or took extra effort.
Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D.C.
Rose Hill Cemetery, Missouri Valley, Iowa
The tombstone above is topped with an open book that has a mourning drape over the right corner of the column. The open book is a fairly common symbol found on gravestones. The motif can represent the Book of Life with the names of the just registered on its pages. This book, like any book in a cemetery, can also symbolize the Word of God in the form of the Bible.
Greenwood Memory Lawn Cemetery, Phoenix, Arizona
The open book is often used to display the names of the deceased on the pages of the open book as in the examples above and below.
Erie Cemetery, Erie, Pennsylvania
Congregation Knesses Israel Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana
The white marble tombstone above has a closed book carved on it resting on top of a draped square column. In Victorian times, heavy black drapery was used during funerals. The use of it here represents mourning.
The closed book is often a metaphor for the end of life, the story has been told and the end of the story has come. After the book is complete, and the book is closed, the author lay in the grave. One of the best written examples of this was written by Benjamin Franklin when he wrote his mock epitaph:
The body of
B. Franklin, Printer
(Like the Cover of an Old Book
Its Contents torn out
And Stript of its Lettering and Gilding)
Lies Here, Food for Worms.
But the Work shall not be Lost:
For it will (as he Believ’d) Appear once more
In a New and More Elegant Edition
Revised and Corrected
By the Author.
The Herbert Hoover Birthplace, West Branch, Iowa
Herbert Clark Hoover, was the first president born west of the Mississippi and the first and only president born in Iowa. Hoover was born August 10, 1874, to Quaker parents, Jessie and Hulda Minthorn Hoover, into a very modest two-room white clapboard home. He was the son of a blacksmith and orphaned after both of his parents died, his father when he was six, his mother when he was nine. Eventually he was sent to live with his mother’s brother, John Minthorn, in Newberg, Oregon.
Hoover attended the first class at Stanford to study engineering. He graduated and went into mining, where he made a fortune in Australia and China. He married his college sweetheart, Lou Henry. While in China, Herbert and Lou taught themselves Mandarin, which they often spoke to each other when they didn’t want others to eavesdrop.
Hoover made his way into politics first as Secretary of Commerce under president Harding and then President Coolidge. After Coolidge’s term, Hoover ran for the presidency and beat Democrat Al Smith. Only nine months after he took office the stock market crashed and with it went his presidency. His belief in rugged individualism made him ill-equipped to deal with the economic catastrophe. Hoover is to the presidency as Edsel is to the car–considered a lemon–because of his inability to deal with the disaster of the Great Depression.
The Herbert and Lou Hoover burial site, West Branch, Iowa
The Hoover burial site is in West Branch, Iowa. The two graves, marked with white marble grave ledgers, sit up on a slope that overlooks Hoover’s birthplace. If you look directly past the flagpole, you can see the back of a small home, the two-room home in which Hoover was born.
This is also the site of the Hoover Presidential Library.
The Herbert Hoover Presiential Library, West Branch, Iowa
Laurel Hill Cemetery, Erie, Pennsylvania
The Knights of St. John, named for their patron saint, St. John the Baptist, is a fraternal organization for Catholic men founded May 6, 1886, in New York State. The organization is the amalgamation of many organizations, such as, the Knights of St. George, the Knights of St. Paul, the Knights of St. Louis, the Knights of St. John, all of which were formed “to improve their moral, mental and social condition; to aid, assist and support members and their families in case of want, sickness and death; and to promote the welfare of the Roman Catholic Religion.”
According to the Buffalo Commandery the Order took as its mission: “a filial, devotion to and respect for the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, a sense of honor, love of truth, courage, respect for womanhood and a indiscriminating charity motivated by love of GOD”. The Order the Knights of St. John, now international, encompasses 17 countries numbering over 12,000 Knights. (The units or posts of the Knights of St. John are formed into Commanderies.)
Above is a metal marker marking the grave of a member of the Knights of St. John. The marker is in the shape of the Maltese Cross, the emblem of the order. It has eight tips. Each tip reminds the viewer of the eight Beatitudes found in the Gospel of St. Matthew (5:3-10):
Miami Cemetery, Miamitown, Ohio
The metal marker above marks the grave of a member of the Daughters of America, a fraternal order founded in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, in 1891 as the auxillary organization of the Jr. Order of United American Mechanics.
The eagle and the stars above the shield represent patriotism, the open Bible in the shield symbolizes religion. Below the Bible are clasping hands, representing the unity of membership.
Miami Cemetery, Miamitown, Ohio
The Daughters of America organization was founded as part of the anti-immigrant movement in the later part of the 19th Century. The organization admits white males and females of good moral character. Following are the main tennets of the order:
Resist unrestricted immigration
Help Americans find employment
Encourage the growth of American businesses
Support Bible reading in public schools
Oppose sectarian influences in state and national governmental affairs
Promote the Jr. Order of United American Mechanics
Provide funds to support orphans of deceased DOA members
Provide funds for the aged and infirmed members of the organization
Maple Grove Cemetery, Hooven, Ohio
Miami Cemetery, Miamitown, Ohio
Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky
The humble bee is a symbol of industry and orderliness. The bee society is highly organized and stratified, with each member of the hive charged with a task that it does each day, all day long. The bees leave the hive and fly from flower to flower returning to the hive with their payload. Though they largely do their work unheard with only a faint buzzing, they do the work of polinating plants critical to the survival of plantlife. So important is the work that they do, Albert Einstein predicted that if bees were to disappear, all of mankind would die, as well, within just a few short years.
Many societies have held up the bee as a virtuous little creature.
Of course, Christians also adopted the bee to represent many different things:
The bee produces the sweet honey but also posesses a stinger which can sting. Because of the dichotomy, the bee is an emblem of Christ who delivered a sweet message that stung sinners.
The bee was also a symbol of the Virgin Mary because the bees were thought to be hatched from unfertilized eggs–virgin birth, as it were. They were seen as pure, moral, and virginal. Their product, therefore, was pure also which is why candles made from beeswax was pure enough to be burned in the church.
The bee has a bite–its stinger which made it a symbol of the Last Judgment.
St. Boniface Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois
The metal marker above marks the grave of a member of The Knights of the Maccabees of the World (KOTM OTW). The marker displays a circle within a circle, with a tent in the inner circle. The term “tent” signified the post or lodge.
The marker below marks the grave of a member of The Knights of the Maccabees which was formed in 1878 in London, Ontario, Canada. The Knights of the Maccabees was a fraternal organization that provided low-cost insurance to members, as well as, funeral expenses.
The Maccabees of the World was a related but separate organization which merged with The Knights of the Maccabees in 1914 under a shortened title, the Maccabees. The organization takes its name from the Jewish leader and military genius, Judas Maccabeau, who led his tribe in revolt against Antiochus IV of Syria in the second century B.C. The founding members of the organization admired Maccabeau’s qualities of steadfastness and perserverence, as well as, his admonition to his soldiers to reserve some of their spoils to be used on behalf of the widows and children of their fallen comrades.
Lakeside Cemetery, Erie, Pennsylvania
The the markers above and below have similar designs, both with a cross in the center of a circle with a cross surrounded by the Latin phrase, in hoc signo vinces, meaning “in this sign you will conquer” which was derived from Constantine I who used the phrase “in this, win” as a motto.
The early Christians adopted it as a symbol consisting of a monogram composed of the Greek letters chi (X) and rho (P), the first two letters in the name Christ. “In later periods the christogram “IHS” both stood for the first three letters of “Jesus” in Latinized Greek and “in hoc signo” from the legend.”
New Oxford Cemetery, New Oxford, Pennsylvania
 | gravelyspeaking on Namesake |
 | jcav on Niobe |
 | Jeff Jones on Namesake |
| gravelyspeaking on A Man’s Mausoleum Is His … |
 | Hack75 on A Man’s Mausoleum Is His … |
Gravely Speaking 