Gravely Speaking

THE TWELVE GATES WERE TWELVE PEARLS, REV. 21:21

“TO-DAY SHALT THOU BE WITH ME IN PARADISE.” LUKE 23:43

FRANK HAMILTON, 1853 – 1947, RESTING

CARRIE HAMILTON, 1852 – 1908, RESTING

ELBERTINE R. HAMILTON, 1862 – 1958, DEVOTED DISCIPLE

Two monuments, one in the Rock Creek Cemetery at Washington D.C. and the other in Cave Hill Cemetery at Louisville, Kentucky, depict an opening or gateway with a rock rolled away from the opening.

The Hamilton Tomb has two Bible verses carved into the face of it that indicate that the opening of that monument is meant to portray Jesus’s entry into Heaven, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” The second Bible verse, Revelation 21:21, goes on to describe the destination, “And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was one pearl; and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.”

The second monument, that of Zachariah Madison Sherley, a prominent riverboat fleet owner and pilot and his wife Susan Wallace Cromwell Sherley, also depicts a rock next to an entryway. This one, too, depicts the Resurrection of Jesus.

Many places in the Bible describe the Holy event, as does John 20:1 – 2, “The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulcher. 2. Then she runneth and cometh Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them. They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid him.”

SHERLEY

Z. M. SHERLEY, 1811 – 1879

SUSAN W. CROMWELL, HIS WIFE, 1831 – 1928

However, the Bork Family monument in St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Tiffin, Ohio, depicts Jesus’s ascension to Heaven. Here Jesus leaves the Earthly realm for the Heavenly realm—this is the Resurrection of Christ.

The polished black granite gravestone in Cleveland’s Lakeview Cemetery honors disc jockey Alan Freed, a pioneer in Rock & Roll radio.  His gravestone displays an image of a juke box on the face of the stone and the following epitaph carved on the back:

ALAN FREED

1921 – 1965

“ROCK & ROLL” WAS BORN IN

CLEVELAND WHEN OHIO NATIVE

AND RADIO DISC JOCKEY

ALN FREED CONINED THE PHRASE

IN 1951.  HE CHAMPIONED THE UPTEMPS, RHYTHM-AND-BLUES

SOUND, AND THE MUSIC APPEALED

TO PEOPLE ON BOTH SIDES OF THE

RACIAL DIVIDE.  FREED USHERED IN

A NEW SPIRIT THAT HELPED BREAK

THE BARRIERS OF SEGREGATION AND

PROVIDED A JOYFUL SOUNDTRACK

FOR HOPE AND CHANGE.

A TRAILBLAZER FOR ROCK & ROLL

THROUGH HIS RADIO SHOWS, CONCERTS,

TELEVISION SHOWS, AND MOVIE

APPEARANCES, THE MUSIC’S POPULARITY

WENT GLOBAL AND FOREVER CHANGED

OUR CULTURAL LANDSCAPE.

WITH THE SUCCES OF HIS

“MOONDOG ROCK & ROLL HOUSE PARTY”

RADIO SHOW, FREED ORGANIZED

CLEVELAND’S “MOONDOG CORONATION BALL”

THE WORLD’S FIRST ROCK CONCERT

ON MARCH 21, 1952.

Bronze, which is distinguished from other metals by its brown coloring when new, and a green patina after it has aged, is another metal that is commonly found in cemeteries, though limited because of its great expense. 

Because bronze is an expensive material it is often in small pieces of the metal that adorn gravestones such as medallions that include bas-relief sculptures.

Mausoleum doors are usually constructed of bronze and come in hundreds of different designs.

Metal funerary sculpture is also often cast bronze.

Lastly, grass markers, or those that are level with the ground, are often bronze, too.  These are often issued by the Department of Veteran’s Affairs for the men and women who served in our Armed Forces.  These can also be purchased for use for those outside the military.  Memorial Parks, those that require “grass markers” often have hundreds of these marking graves.

Much of the bronze work including sculptures was cast by foundries, such as the JNO Williams Foundry in New York City.  The foundry was established in 1875 by John Williams who had been an employee of Tiffany & Company who left to start his own enterprise.  The foundry worked with some of the most influential and well-known sculptors of the late 19^th and early 20^th Centuries, such as, Louis Amateis, Karl Bitter, Gutzon Borglum, Pompeo Coppini, Daniel Chester French, Harriet Frishmuth Carl Augustus Heber, Anna Hyatt Huntington, Charles Keck, Edward Kemeys, Samuel Kilpatrick, Augustus Lukeman, Frederick MacMonnies, R. Tait McKenzie, Percival J. Morris, Allen George Newman, Charles Niehaus, Roalnd Hinton Perry, J. Massey Rhind, Andrew O’Connor, Alexander Phimister Proctor, Augustus Saint Gaudens, Anton Schaaf, Francois Tonetti, Gaetan Trentanove, J. Q. A. Ward, Olin Levi Warner, Albert Weinert, and George Julian Zolnay.

The foundry manufactured architectural pieces, such as bronze doors, for the Boston Public Library, the Library of Congress, and the United States Capitol building, as well as, sculptural pieces, such as, the tigers in front of Nassau Hall at Princeton University.

NOTE: The JNO. Williams advertisements were all from an industry publication, The Monumental News, and were researched and provided by Peggy Perazzo who shares her vast collection of gravestone catalogs and resources at her Website: http://quarriesandbeyond.org/cemeteries_and_monumental_art/cemetery_stones.html.

The Quarries and Beyond Website was created by Peggy B. and Patrick Perazzo. It focuses on historic stone quarries, stone workers and companies, and related subjects such as geology. Whenever possible links of finished products are provided on the Website. There is a “Quarry Articles” section that presents articles, booklets, and links from the late 1800s to early 1900s, including the 1856 “The Marble-Workers’ Manual.” The “Cemetery Stones and Monuments” section provides references and resources, including many old monument magazines, catalogs, price lists, and a photographic tour “From Quarry to Cemetery Monuments.

Another material that grave markers are made of is cast iron, though as common as some others. Cast iron became much less expensive in the second half of the 19^th Century coupled with the ease of making more intricate patterns and designs made it a material that some chose. 

Cast iron markers come in many different forms—some traditional such as a rounded-top marker that mimics the look of a traditional marble gravestone.  Even the symbolism on this marker in the Kingsbury Cemetery, in Kingsbury, Indiana, is a weeping willow, an ubiquitous motif found in nearly every cemetery across the country.

Other cast iron designs were readily available, too, such as intricate crosses.

Even some mausoleums were constructed of cast iron, such as the Reynolds Family Tomb in New Orleans, Louisiana.  Of course, the choice of cast iron for the building instead of marble or granite for the tomb of William H. Reynolds, however, was likely due to the fact that he owned the Reynolds foundry at New Orleans.  His family tomb is the only cast-iron tomb in the Metarie Cemetery.  Built in 1877, the tomb is an eclectic design featuring Byzantine-style twisted corner columns, an Italianate cornice, and a highly decorative iron work adorning the top.

The last few posts have concentrated on grave markers made of material other than stone.  Often the material is whatever is at hand when marble, granite, or slate, aren’t’ or is too expensive for some of the families burying their dead.  In this case, in the small town of Uhrichsville, Ohio, many grave markers made of sculpted clay dot the city’s Union Cemetery.  These markers are more folk art than grave marker and are artistic creations by artisans living and working with the native clay.

As it turns out, Uhrichsville has had a tile company, the Superior Clay Company, which has produced fine terra cotta and fired clay items for over a century.  For more than four generations the workers at the factory have and still turn out clay chimney pots, firebricks, and other terra cotta decoratives.  As the story goes, a talented and enterprising craftsperson in the tile company began fashioning markers out of the clay, most likely for relatives or friends, at least at first.  These unique fired clay markers were sculpted in the rustic tradition–to look like tree stumps. 

Tree stump gravestones were a part of the rustic movement of the mid-nineteenth century which was characterized by designs that were made to look like they were from the country. The rustic movement complemented the rural cemetery movement which began in the United States in 1831 with the opening of Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The rural cemeteries were often located on the outskirts of town and laid out as a park would be—with broad avenues and winding pathways, featuring picturesque landscaping such as ponds, abundant trees, and shrubs. The tree-stump tombstones were a funerary art contrivance mimicking the natural surroundings of the cemetery. The tree-stump tombstones were most popular for a twenty year-period from about 1885 until about 1905.

In funerary art, tombstones took on the look of tree stumps. The gravestones were purposefully designed to look like trees that had been cut and left in the cemetery to mark a grave. Most of these tree-stump tombstones were carved from limestone, which is easier to carve, though some are made from marble and even a few from granite. But in Uhrichsville they were created from native clay.  The creativity of the craftsmen creating the tree-stump markers exist in many designs, each one separate and distinct.

For the most part, the clay markers are hollow and open often with sprigs of saplings growing from the tops!  Just as in traditional markers, the clay markers were created with diversity of design and tailored to the individual tastes and interests of the deceased as the example below that displays the emblem of the Knights of Pythias. 

As stated in the previous post, “Tombstone” and “gravestone” are words that are used interchangeably to describe all grave markers, no matter what they are made of.  And, in fact, gravestones or rather grave markers are made of many kinds of materials, including zinc. 

Zinc markers, often referred to as “Zincies” by cemetery aficionados, were produced and sold by the Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut.  Though the company billed the markers as “white bronze” they were cast zinc.  The markers are distinguishable by their bluish-gray tint. Many of the designs mimicked designs that were commonly found carved from stone.

The company set up their first subsidiary in Detroit, Michigan. Others followed in Philadelphia, New Orleans, St. Thomas, Ontario, Des Moines, and Chicago. Enterprising salesmen carried a catalog door-to-door with them to show customers the many styles and price ranges of the product line. In many cemeteries you can find evidence of highly successful salesmen who sold a large number of the markers. The zinc markers were produced beginning in the 1870s until the company closed shop in 1912.

These grave markers came in a wide assortment of sizes and shapes and were somewhat like grave marker erector sets. The more elaborate markers had a shell of sorts and then various panels could be bolted on according to the tastes of the family ordering the grave marker. In this way, each marker could be “customized” to the tastes of the individual.

“Tombstone” and “gravestone” are words that are used interchangeably to describe all grave markers, no matter what they are made of.  And many think of gravestones and tombstones as being made of stone, after all stone is in the name, right?  

In fact, the dusty Western town Tombstone, Arizona, was named when a prospecting miner was searching for silver.  Soldiers in the area were trying to warn him, “You keep fooling around out there amongst the Natives Americans and the only rock you’ll find will be your tombstone!”  There it was—tombstone.  The miner named his claim tombstone, and it was later adopted as the name of the town.

Ironically, in the famous Boot Hill Cemetery in historic Tombstone, Arizona, nearly every grave marker is not made of stone, but of painted wood.  Gravestones, or rather, grave markers are made of many kinds of materials other than stone including wood which was often the only material readily available and easily carved or painted even though its ephemeral quality almost guaranteed that eventually the name of the person buried underneath the wooden marker wood fade and be long forgotten to history.  For instance, Effie Maud Crippen’s marker in the Yosemite Cemetery, in the Yosemite Valley of California, is a carved wood slab that becomes more faint with each passing year.   

Effie Maud had suffered from a lingering illness and her frail body succumbed, her September 3, 1881, Mariposa Gazette death notice described her untimely passing, “The grim monster, Death holds an impartial respect for persons: blooming youth, as well as the aged, must yield to the sickle, and fall into the swath, which is to be gathered into the fold and gathered with others who have preceded, and those who are soon to follow.” 

She died and was buried the next day, followed to the grave by her family, friends, neighbors, and her classmates.  Her epitaph now faintly whispers, “She faltered by the wayside and the angels took her home.” How long before the wooden grave marker that bears witness to her life fades along with her name?

George Henry Hall

Born: September 21, 1825 in Boston, Massachusetts

Died: February 13,1913 in New York, New York

Most tombstones don’t give up much information about the deceased, save the name, dates of birth and death and sometimes a fraternal association or military service.  But occasionally, if one is observant there is a hint about the person buried beneath the stone. 

In this case, the gravestone of George Henry Hall, in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, tells us about his character with his epitaph, which is not a pedestrian epitaph chosen from a book at the gravestone seller’s business or through a catalog.  It reads, “TRUE, JUST, AND HONORABLE IN ALL RELTATIONS OF LIFE.” 

And, the bronze bas-relief on the face of the stone also gives us a clear image of what Hall looked like.  But, if you look closely at the bottom of the profile, there is a hint as to Hall’s occupation.  There below the bust carved into the bronze is an artist’s palette and paint brush.  George Henry Hall was an artist.  He was considered by many to be one of the best still-life artists of the 19^th Century, a genre of paintings which were in vogue at the time.  Hall also painted landscapes, peasants, and figures.  He was well-known and a prolific artist selling more than 1,600 paintings in his lifetime, as well as prints ad sculptures.  Many of his paintings can be viewed in US and European museums.

Hall studied in Germany, Paris, Switzerland, and Rome, but did most of his painting in New York where he had a studio for many years.  While the gravestone doesn’t tell Hall’s whole story, it does give an intriguing clue that will cause some to investigate the man buried below the tombstone.

This year marks my 46^th year since I started my first job in educational publishing.  In that time, I have met and worked with thousands of talented and gifted educators.  One of those teachers is MaryKim, a creative force, who used the cemetery as an open-air classroom as part of a Death: Fact and Fiction course in her St. Charles, Missouri, classroom.  In that course she used Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology as course material for the class.  Her school was 150 miles away from where the characters from the anthology are buried, so she would load her students up and make the trek to Lewistown and Petersburg so they could see the communities and cemeteries for themselves that had inspired Masters.

The anthology reads like a soap opera because characters come in and out of each other people’s poems and more and more connections are made among the people in the monologues. One of the main reasons MaryKim selected Spoon River Anthology as a text for the class was because it taught students how to pick out subtleties and build a sensitivity to language.  After constant practice that came with such a volume of poems, 244 in all, students would get the hang of the style, rhythm, and structure. As part of the course MaryKim would have the students mimick Masters’s style in poems of their own.    

The students especially found the sets of poems that told two or more sides to someone’s life. Two of their favorites were the poems about Elsa Wertman and Hamilton Greene:

Elsa Wertman

I was a peasant girl from Germany,

Blue-eyed, rosy, happy and strong.

And the first place I worked was at Thomas Green’s.

On a summer’s day when she was away

He stole into the kitchen and took me

Right in his arms and kissed me on the throat,

I turning my head.  Then neither of us

Seemed to know what happened.

And I cried for what would become of me.

And I cried as my secret began to show.

One day Mrs. Greene said she understood,

And would make no trouble for me,

And, being childless, would adopt it.

(He had given her a farm to be still.)

So she hid in the house and sent out rumors,

As if it were going to happen to her.

And all went well and the child was born—They were so kind to me.

Later I married Gus Wertman, and years passed.

But—at political rallies when sitters-by thought I was crying

At the eloquence of Hamilton Greene—

That was not it.

No! I wanted to say:

That’s my son! That’s my son!

Hamilton Greene

I was the only child of Frances Harris of Virginia

And Thomas Greene of Kentucky,

Of valiant and honorable blood both.

To them I owe all that I became,

Judge, member of Congress, leader in the State.

From my mother I inherited

Vivacity, fancy, language:

From my father will, judgment, logic.

All honor to them

For what service I was to the people!

According to the map and key that is available at the entrance to the Oak Hill Cemetery in Lewistown, the fictional person, Hamilton Greene, depicted in the poem was Thomas A. Boyd.  It is clear that Masters fictionalized the account.  For one, the real-life Boyd, although, he was an attorney and did serve in state government and in Congress in the House of Representatives, he was born in Pennsylvania, not Kentucky.  It is unclear how much of the rest of the account after that was fictional. Unfortunately, there is no indication of who Elsa Wertman might have been or even if she had been based on a real person who lived in the area. Her secret has been kept.

At the end of the unit, the class would have a great celebration to share the projects they created—cakes in the form of tombstones, poetic monologues in Spoon River fashion about students’ ancestors, parades of characters with props speaking to us from their graves, and once even a movie from a group of boys who visited the cemeteries and shot the film.  For many students it was a “family affair” day since so many students wrote poems about their own dead relatives.

To get the students in her classroom started on their creative journeys, MaryKim would share poems she wrote about her own parents: her mother who died from cancer she got because of a wrong prescription and one about her dad who died a few days after having gone fishing and written, of course, in Edgar Lee Masters’s style:

Vera Nylon Dotzler 

The doctors said “it was all in my head…” 

(it was my 43rd birthday) 

but I knew something was growing inside 

eating me up little by little. 

Finally the cancer showed up on an x-ray 

and I was sadly vindicated. 

Yet, how was I to give my four children 

the lifetime’s worth of mothering they would need 

with only six months left ? 

What happened to them? 

Are they happy? 

Did they marry and have children? 

So much unanswered. 

Better a long life of pain and disappointment 

than a life cut short and left unfinished 

leaving only questions. 

Mark Dotzler 

1906-1987 

I died on a Monday 

the weekend before I spent fishing 

How I loved the sight of the sun coming over the trees 

splashing down into the water. 

How I loved the dancing ripples around the line, taut with a 

nibble… 

Life was a lake to me 

with shallows and deeps, beauty and dangers, 

and always mysteries hovering just below the surface. 

Over the years 

the Fisher of Men – Death – 

had done a lot of catch and release with me. 

At the age of 81 

he decided I was a keeper… 

I was perhaps, even – 

the Catch of the Day!

In Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology some of the names that topped the poetic monologues were fictious and seemingly plucked out of thin air.  Some were chosen from the Illinois State Constitution and some were real people such as Hannan Armstrong, Chase Henry, and Anne Rutledge, the woman who was purported to be a love interest of a young Abraham Lincoln.  Historians disagree whether Lincoln and Rutledge were truly romantically connected. 

Anne was born near Henderson, Kentucky, January 7, 1813.  When she was a teenager, Anne moved, along with her family, to New Salem, Illinois, which was co-founded by her father.  It was there where she met the young and gangly Abraham Lincoln.  However, a wave of typhoid swept through the area and Anne succumbed.  She died August 25, 1835 and was buried in the small country Old Concord Burial Ground. 

Many years later, when a Petersburg, Illinois, undertaker took a financial interest in the Oakland Cemetery, he had Anne Rutledge’s body exhumed and moved her remains to a grave in Petersburg.  Her tombstone was replaced with a large granite monument with Edgar Lee Master’s poem about her etched on its rock face:

Out of me unworthy and unknown
The vibrations of deathless music:
“With malice toward none, with charity toward all.”
Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions,
And the beneficent face of a nation
Shining with justice and truth.
I am Ann Rutledge who sleeps beneath these weeds,
Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln,
Wedded to him, not through union,
But through separation.
Bloom forever, O Republic,
From the dust of my bosom!