Gravely Speaking

HOME AT LAST

DORIS MARIE

SEWARD

1917 — 20

            1999

SHE WAS AN OPTIMIST

I.U. CLASS OF 1938 

There is a tiny cemetery in the middle of the Indiana University campus next to the Beck Chapel.  Only a couple of dozen people are buried there.  One gravestone of note, is for Doris Marie Seward, whose epitaph describes her as an optimist.  Indeed, her gravestone carver believed she would live into the next millennium, first carving 20, the beginning of 2000 with the death date to be filled in later.  She did not make it and the 20 was crossed out for her death year of 1999.  She almost made it.

Greenwood Cemetery, Phoenix, Arizona

Wm LOSSING

1848 – 19 8

(It appears as if the “1” on the tombstone has been chiseled off)

The beehive is often found on the graves of members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows or the Freemasons. To the Masons, the beehive represented a feat that not a single bee could accomplish, but the industry of many bees.  Masons were to work hard when working so they could live with a free conscience on their holidays or non-working days.

The Mormons also adopted the tiny bee and the beehive as a symbol of community.  Again, they could build a tabernacle or an entire community by employing the talents and skills of many that could not be accomplished by a few.  The Great Seal of the State of Utah has at its center, a beehive with the word “INDUSTRY” written above the image of the beehive.

The beehive, like the great pyramids, represent a hierarchy in society, suggesting an organized community.  The beehive has long been a symbol for human industry. The cliché, busy as a bee, reinforces the idea of the bees being industrious.  It also represents faith, education and domestic virtues.

Greenwood Cemetery, Phoenix, Arizona

MINNIE C.

Wife of

A. J.

STONER

Dec. 16, 1893

23 Yrs 11 Mos.

18 Dys

The Victorian Era lasted from about 1832 until Queen Victoria’s death in 1903.  The era was an eclectic period in the decorative arts with several styles—Gothic, Tudor, Neoclassical—vying for dominance.  The period was marked by ornamentation.  This was true in architecture, furniture, and funerary arts.  In cemeteries gravestones became taller, ornamented, and sentimental.

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”.  Each flower had a meaning that was conveyed to the viewer or receiver of the flower or bouquet of flowers—the lily of the valley represented humility, the coral rose represented desire and passion, the white lily represented purity, and so on.

Here on this gravestone in the Greenwood Cemetery at Phoenix, Arizona, lightly incised into the four sides are cattails.  Cattails are found in marshes and at the pond’s edge.  The cattail is a plain plant, a common plant that flourishes next to the water.  In Christianity, the great prophet—the infant Moses—was found floating in a tiny basket woven of bulrushes and among the cattails.  Cattails, therefore became connected to a place of Salvation.  And because cattails only thrive with “wet feet” faithful Christians see it as a plant that is connected to the source of living waters—the teachings of the Church.  Cattails are a metaphor for the humble servants of the Lord who live a life of humble obedience.

A common epitaph found on many gravestones uses the imagery of the water’s edge to describe the place where loved ones will meet in the hereafter, a place of Salvation:

Our darling one

Has gone before

To greet us

On the blissful shore.

SCOTT JAMIESON

1878 – 1909

until the morning

of the resurrection.

Occasionally a gravestone is fashioned in a way so that the symbolism is matched to the epitaph, as is the case.  Here, an incised carving shows curtains being drawn to the sides to reveal the sun rising over the clouds–the rising sun, a symbol of the resurrection.  This matches the epitaph on the gravestone and leaves little doubt what message the gravestone is trying to convey.  In addition to that, the open book on the top of the gravestone most likely represents the Bible.  This further the religious message of the marker–God’s Word is the way to Heaven.