Gravely Speaking

Benjamin Franklin Jones

August 8, 1824 – May 19, 1903

Mary McMasters Jones

March 13, 1829 – January 11, 1911

On the front of the Jones Family Mausoleum in the Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh are two Neo-classic female figures in flowing Roman or Greek robes.  The woman on the left holds an open book while the figure on the right has a closed book in her lap and one hand on a palm front and a wreath. 

The open book likely represents the Bible.  The other figure looks downward with one hand she holds a palm frond.  The palm frond is an ancient symbol of victory, dating back to Roman times when victors were presented with palm fronds. The palm fronds were also laid in the path of Jesus as He entered Jerusalem. So, for many Christians, the palm represents righteousness, resurrection, and martyrdom, symbolizing the spiritual victory over death associated with the Easter story.  On her lap rest a closed book which most likely indicates a completed life.  Between the two women rests a wreath.  The wreath is round—a completed circle—symbolizing eternity.  A laurel wreath represents victory over death and dates back again to Roman times.

This motif has been found on the following monuments.

May “Mollie” Cash Neal

Born 1844, Louisiana

Died October 1894, aged 49-50

Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie” Neal

Born 1867, Louisiana

Died June 17, 1889, aged 21-22

The monument in the historic Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta of two women sitting next two each other was thought to be carved to represent a mother and a daughter.  The sculpture on the left is thought to represent May “Mollie” Neal, wife of Captain Thomas Benton Neal (born October 21, 1838, Pike County, Georgia—Died April 12,1902, aged 63, Fulton County, Georgia).

This monument is not an original—that is there are others that look similar, like the Frank and Mary Lang monument in the Fairview Cemetery in New Albany, Indiana.  The white marble monument is weathered and worn but is unmistakably the same.

Asleep in Jesus, blessed thought.

In memory of

Frank Lang

Died March 26, 1892

Aged 80 years

Mary C. his wife

Aged 77 years.

Philip Morris

1855 – August 24, 1907

Elizabeth Disston Morris

1881- 1956

The Morris monument in the Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.

ROBERT PAUL Jr.

WAS A PRIVATE OF CO. A. 13^TH PA. VOL.

INFANTRY 3 MONTHS SERVICE,

HELPED ORGANIZE AND ENLISTED

IN HAMPTON BATTERY F. PA.

LIGHT ARTILLERY OCT. 8^TH 1861 AND

WAS ENGAGED IN EVERY BATTLE THE

BATTERY WAS IN DURING THE WAR.

HONORABLY DISCHARGED

JAN. 3^RD 1865 AS

FIRST LIEUTENANT.

DIED SEPT. 11^TH 1905.

The soaring light gray granite obelisk marks the grave of Robert Paul Jr.’s grave.  The front of the monument is embellished with a bronze shield that details his service during the Civil War.  The two sides of the monument are further indications of his military service. 

On one side at two crossed rifles with a canteen and shoulder bag laid over a laurel wreath.  The rifles likely memorialize Paul’s duty in the Pennsylvania Infantry. The laurel wreath in the motif is an ancient Roman symbol of victory in war.

On the other side of the monument are two crossed cannons—again laid over a laurel wreath.  The cannons are a tribute to his time in the Hampton Battery, a light artillery unit. In between the cannons is a clover which is a nod to Paul’s Irish heritage and birth.

ADAM JACKSON

Born about 1862 in England

Died March 25, 1910, Bloomington, Indiana

At first glance the small limestone gravestone in Section E in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Bloomington, Indiana, looks like it was sculpted for a small child, maybe even an infant.  But at closer inspection, what at first looked like a child’s coffin is carved to resemble a stonecutter’s toolbox, complete with hinges on the back and handles on the sides for easy lifting.  The final clue is the chisel carved on the base of the gravestone, indicating the profession of the deceased person’s occupation—stonecutter.

The only other clue to who lay beneath the stone is the initial “A.” and the last name “JACKSON.”  A quick look in the cemetery files indicates that an A. Jackson was buried in the Rose Hill Cemetery and that he died March 1, 1910.  A search of deaths in Monroe County turned up an Adam Jackson who had been treated for pneumonia for about five days before he succumbed and died March 25, 1910, in Bloomington.  There was a small discrepancy in his date of death but that is not uncommon. Mr. Jackson was born in England in about 1862.  His occupation was listed as stonecutter just as his gravestone indicates.

GENERAL ALEXANDER HAYES

KILLED IN THE BATTLE OF

THE WILDERNESS

MAY THE 5^TH 1864.

BORN JULY THE 8^TH 1819.

THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED

BY THE SOLDIERS OF HIS COMMAND

This monument is topped with an eagle standing on a flag-draped sarcophagus.  An eagle often represents the Fraternal Order of Eagles, but in this case the eagle connotes service in the military. 

West Point graduate Hayes served with distinction in two wars—the Mexican American War and the Civil War.  According to Images of America: Allegheny Cemetery, published by Arcadia Publishing, written by Lisa Speranza and Nancy Foley, page 55, Hayes was “promoted twice for gallantry in the Civil War, Hayes was severely injured at Second Bull Run and largely responsible for repulsing Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg.”  General Hayes was leading his troops at the Battle of the Wilderness, when a “sniper’s bullet found his head, killing him instantly.”

The men of his command erected this monument which President Ulysses Grant, who became friends with Hayes at West Point and served with him during the Civil War, visited his grave and “circling the monument in contemplative silence, … sat upon an inverted cannon and openly wept.” 

On the plinth, reads the following stanza which is the second quatrain from the poem “Bivouac of the Dead” by Theodore O’Hara. The poem was written to mourn the war dead from the Mexican American War and gained popularity during the Civil War:

On Fame’s eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

The full poem:

“BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD”

The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat
The soldier’s last tattoo;
No more on life’s parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.

On Fame’s eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe’s advance
Now swells upon the wind;
Nor troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;

No vision of the morrow’s strife
The warrior’s dream alarms;
No braying horn nor screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shriveled swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed,
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.

And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,
And the proud forms, by battle gashed
Are free from anguish now.

The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle’s stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout, are past;

Nor war’s wild note nor glory’s peal
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that nevermore may feel
The rapture of the fight.

Like the fierce northern hurricane
That sweeps the great plateau,
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,
Came down the serried foe,

Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o’er the field beneath,
Knew well the watchword of that day
Was “Victory or death!”

Long had the doubtful conflict raged
O’er all that stricken plain,
For never fiercer fight had waged
The vengeful blood of Spain;

And still the storm of battle blew,
Still swelled the gory tide;
Not long, our stout old chieftain knew,
Such odds his strength could bide.

Twas in that hour his stern command
Called to a martyr’s grave
The flower of his beloved land,
The nation’s flag to save.

By rivers of their father’s gore
His first-born laurels grew,
And well he deemed the sons would pour
Their lives for glory too.

For many a mother’s breath has swept
O’er Angostura’s plain —
And long the pitying sky has wept
Above its moldered slain.

The raven’s scream, or eagle’s flight,
Or shepherd’s pensive lay,
Alone awakes each sullen height
That frowned o’er that dread fray.

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground
Ye must not slumber there,
Where stranger steps and tongues resound
Along the heedless air.

Your own proud land’s heroic soil
Shall be your fitter grave;
She claims from war his richest spoil —
The ashes of her brave.

Thus ‘neath their parent turf they rest,
Far from the gory field,
Borne to a Spartan mother’s breast
On many a bloody shield;

The sunshine of their native sky
Smiles sadly on them here,
And kindred eyes and hearts watch by
The heroes sepulcher.

Rest on embalmed and sainted dead!
Dear as the blood ye gave;
No impious footstep shall here tread
The herbage of your grave;

Nor shall your glory be forgot
While fame her records keeps,
Or Honor points the hallowed spot
Where Valor proudly sleeps.

Yon marble minstrel’s voiceless stone
In deathless song shall tell,
When many a vanquished ago has flown,
The story how ye fell;

Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter’s blight,
Nor Time’s remorseless doom,
Shall dim one ray of glory’s light
That gilds your deathless tomb.

GRANT WOOD

1891-1942

NAN GRAHAM WOOD

1899-1990

BYRON H. McKEEBY

1867—1950

Few paintings in American history have the power to create a tourist attraction but that is exactly what American Gothic has done for the very small Iowa town of Eldon.

Eldon is the home of the small house built by the Dibble family between 1881 and 1882, which became the backdrop for one of the most famous and most parodied paintings in America, if not the world.  

The house caught Grant Wood’s eye because of the pointed-arch window which was likely purchased from a Sears catalog and built in the mid-19^th century architectural Carpenter Gothic style—hence the name of the painting—American Gothic.  Wood thought the Gothic-style window on the modest farmhouse looked pretentious. 

According to a placard at what is now a museum that maintains the house and features details about the artist and the famous painting, “The style grew out of a need for quickly built homes and a desire for fanciful details.  The price to add these details to wood-framed structures decreased significantly during this period, so even modest homes were able to incorporate extra elements.

Now tourists visiting the American Gothic House Museum, take turns renting the costumes that resemble what Nan Wood, Grant wood’s sister, and his dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby, are wearing in the famous painting.  My wife and I couldn’t resist—we donned the attire, too! 

The pair in the painting are Grant’s image of a father and daughter who he imagined might have lived in the farmhouse behind them, though most think the painting is of a farm couple. 

Grant Wood and his sister, Nan, are buried in the Riverside Cemetery at Anamosa, Iowa. Dr. Byron McKeeby is buried in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at the Oak Hill Cemetery.

JOHN THEOBOLD WEYBRECHT

BORN IN ALSACE, FRANCE JANUARY 27^TH 1829.

DIED AT ALLIANCE, OHIO JANUARY 31^ST, 1895. 

KNOW TO THIS COMMUNITY FOR FORTY YEARS

AS A USEFUL CITIZEN AND HONEST MAN

The towering granite Weybrecht monument in the Alliance City Cemetery in Alliance, Ohio, is imbued with symbolism starting at the very top. Often, urns are found on top of columns.  The urn, of course, is a container used to hold the ashes or the cremated remains of the dead.  In this case, the urn is draped.  The drapery can represent a shroud symbolizing death and sorrow, or can be a motif that represents a veil that separates the Earthly and Heavenly realms.  The urn was an almost ubiquitous 19th Century symbol found in nearly every American cemetery. 

The irony is that very few people were cremated during the 19th Century when the draped urn motif was at the height of its popularity.  For instance, during the eight years from 1876 until 1884, only 41 Americans were cremated.  David Charles Sloane writes in his book, Is the Cemetery Dead? pages10-11, “in 1960, fewer than 5 percent of dead Americans were cremated.  Most were buried or entombed in cemeteries after religious services.  By 2015, a larger percentage of the dead were cremated (roughly 48 percent)…Projections suggest this trend will only escalate, perhaps to 70 percent cremated by 2030”.

Lower on the monument is a laurel wreath tied neatly with a ribbon.  The laurel wreath dates back to Roman times when soldiers wore them as triumphal signs of glory.  The laurel was also believed to wash away the soldier’s guilt from injuring or killing any of his opponents.  In funerary art the laurel wreath is often seen as a symbol of victory over death.

But, the focal point of the monument, between the columns with the composite capitals is a cartouche with a bronze medallion containing the portrait of John Theobold Weybrecht and an inscription that details his birth, death, and virtue as a citizen and a man.  

The bas-relief or low-relief of Weybrecht was sculpted by Ohio artist Ora Coltman (December 3, 1858 – July 2, 1940).  Coltman was a painter, as well as a sculptor. The difficulty in creating a flattened sculpture of a face is giving it a three-dimensional look and feel and capturing the visual qualities of the man.  Coltman’s talent is clear. 

DANIEL O’NEILL

January 1, 1830 – Cloughbawn, County Wexford, Ireland

January 30, 1877  — Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Daniel O’Neill was born in Cloughbawn, County Wexford, Ireland, where he was a contributor to the local newspaper.  When he immigrated to the United States in 1851, he worked as an editor of the Pittsburgh Dispatch and the competing newspaper, the Chronicle.  He and his brother, Eugene O’Neill, eventually bought controlling interest in the Dispatch.  The paper was successful and influential.  One of their top writers was Nellie Bly who won acclaim for her swashbuckling trip around the world in 72 days.  She was a pioneer in journalism becoming one of the first investigative journalists.  “Nellie Bly” was a pen name—her birth name was Elizabeth Jane Cochran.

Many writers take on pen names, one of the most famous was Samuel Langhorne Clemens who wrote under the name of Mark Twain regaling readers with the tales of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer.  Children’s book author and illustrator Theodor Geisel best known for Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, among dozens of other books was known to children as Dr. Seuss.  Geisel took his middle name as his nom de plume.  The polemics 1984 and Animal Farm were written by author Eric Arthur Blair who wrote under the name of George Orwell.  Like many writers, Daniel O’Neill’s son, Florence, took on a pen name.  While Florence was the circulation manager at the Pittsburgh Dispatch, he wrote a daily column under the pen name Dick Dasher until he resigned the post in 1904. 

Daniel O’Neill’s granite monument shows him at this writing desk toiling away, pen in hand—an editor’s work is never done.

At the highest point in the Allegheny Cemetery is a soaring column topped by an allegorical statue of Faith commissioned in 1877 for the Moorhead Family of Pittsburgh.  On the face of the base of the Corinthian column is a bronze bas-relief of the three allegorical figures—Faith, Hope, and Charity.  Just below the three draped figures is written the Biblical passage from 1 Corinthians 13:13, “And Now Abideth Faith, Hope Charity.”  The rest of the passage adds, “but the greatest of these is Charity.  Oddly enough, the figure atop the column is not Charity as one might expect given the Bible passage highlighted on the monument.  The sculpture also includes a palm leaf and a crown which represents victory over death and the triumph of the soul.

The bas-relief was sculpted by Carl Conrads (1839-1920).  Conrads was born in Breisig, Germany and immigrated to the United States.  He only returned to Germany for a short time to study sculpture.  He found work at the Hartford Granite Company and created public monuments as well as funerary sculpture.  His works can be found in

U. S. Capitol, the Connecticut State Capitol, West Point, Antietam National Cemetery, among others.  One of the greatest 19^th Century sculptors, Lorado Taft, described Conrads as “a German of good training” … “who has done much creditable work well adapted to the requirements of that ungrateful material.”

This stained-glass window in the Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh, has two prominent symbols, both of which, are commonly found in American cemeteries, though not usually as colorfully and vivid as this.

The crown is a symbol of glory and reward and victory over death.  The reward comes after life and the hard-fought battle on Earth against the wages of sin and the temptations of the flesh.  The reward awaits in Heaven where the victor will receive a crown of victory.  The crown also represents the sovereign authority of the Lord.

The lily, as a funerary symbol, has many meanings including purity, innocence, virginity, heavenly bliss, majestic beauty, and Christ’s resurrection.  Christians believe that the trumpet-shaped blossoms announce the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Easter Lily has long been associated with the Christian religion, commonly referred to as “White-Robed Apostles of Christ.” Early Christians believed that lilies sprouted where Jesus Christ’s sweat fell to the ground in the Garden of Gethsemane.

White has typically been a color associated with virtues of purity and innocence.  Often the lily can be found on the grave of a child, the epitome of purity and innocence.

The white lily is also associated with virginity and marriage, in particular relationship to women.  On one hand, the lily represents virginity and innocence, which is an appropriate symbol for a young unmarried woman.  On the other hand, it is symbolic of majestic beauty and marriage, which makes it an appropriate symbol for all married women regardless of their age.

If this stained-glass window were a pictogram, the literal meaning might be—after death comes the resurrection (lilies) and the victory over death (crown).

ROY ARTHUR HUNT

AUGUST 3, 1881 – OCTOBER 21, 1966

RACHEL McMASTERS MILLER HUNT

Wife of ROY ARTHUR HUNT

June 30, 1882 – February 22, 1963

The Hunt family marker in the Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh has two matching flowers flanking the central part of the gravestone.  Often stylized flowers are difficult to key, but the distinct features of the fritillaria made this one easy.  The fritillaria is in the lily family and the common English name is “snake head’s”. 

Many flowers can be found in dictionaries explaining flowers’ meaning. In Victorian times, flowers took on significance as a way to send coded messages; this was known as floriography from the Latin combining flora—“goddess of flowers”—and graphein—“writing.”

In 1878, Kate Greenaway, a popular author and illustrator, gained fame for an illustrated children’s book of verse she wrote titled Under the Window, which delighted children.  Just six short years later, Greenaway published the Language of Flowers.  And although, the book is a nearly complete listing of flowers along with their “secret” or symbolic meanings, I could find no meaning for any of the various common names for the fritillaria—guinea-hen flower, leper lily, drooping tulip, or checkered daffodil.

Perhaps, since there doesn’t seem to be a symbolic meaning, this flower was a family favorite.