50 years ago today, Jacqueline Kennedy lit the eternal flame marking the grave of the fallen president, John F. Kennedy, who lies buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The flame was requested by Mrs. Kennedy who was inspired by several sources including Candle in the Wind, the fourth book in the series by T. H. White, which was the inspiration for the musical Camelot.
Union Cemetery, Uhrichsville, Ohio
When I first wrote about Charles Witting’s gravestone, I had not seen his name or inscription on his gravestone. It is faint and faded and completely slipped by me. But a reader, Athyna, wrote to me to tell me that I had, in fact, missed Charles Witting’s name, death date and age at the time of his death, which were all carved on the gravestone. She agreed to go back to the cemetery and get the information and I agreed to see if I could do some more research on the person buried beneath this one-of-a-kind tombstone.
Athyna wrote and gave me the following information:
Charles E. Witting
Died May 4, 1900
Aged 27 YR 6 MO 4 DA
As I wrote earlier, “this intricately carved gray marble caboose, track, and wheel displaying the letters: B of RRT can be found in the Union Cemetery at Uhrichsville, Ohio. The tale told by the cemetery maintenance crew about the marker is that the man buried under the railroad car was killed by a wheel that came off the train, which is displayed in front of the car.”
Besides being a cruel joke to show the weapon of one’s demise at one’s graveside, the story is only partially true. The wheel depicted in front of the caboose commemorates Witting’s membership in the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. BUT, it was the caboose that actually killed Witting NOT the wheel.
In an ironic twist, the very thing that killed Charles E. Witting became the image for his gravestone. The caboose sculpture marking his grave also represented the job he loved and held for 8 years–again, the thing he loved, killed him.
According to the Ohio Democrat and Times, Thursday, May 10, 1900, Witting was crushed by a caboose, “One of the saddest accidents of its kind was that which occurred just west of Coshocton on Friday evening last, in which one of the best men in the employ of the Pan Handle railway company suddenly met death. Charles E. Witting of Columbus, acting as a flagman until his promised promotion to conductor, was crushed to death by an overturned caboose. The breaking of the axle on the front truck of the car next to the caboose caused part of the train to be derailed while going at the regular rate of speed. Witting and two others, one of whom was the conductor were in the overturned portion of the train. Witting jumped from the platform of the swaying car. The others who were in the caboose went over with it and received only bruises while Wittings lifeless body was extricated with difficulty from under the overturned car. He leaves his wife and infant son, a twin brother, William E. Witting, an aged father and mother who live in Frazeysburg and other relatives. Charles was only 27 years of age and had been in the employ of the Pan Handle railway company continuously for more than eight years. The funeral was held Monday at 2 p.m. from the home of his father-in-law Frank Davis in Uhrichsville and Charles Witting is now quietly sleeping away the years of his promising manhood in the beautiful Union Cemetery at that place.”
Charles Witting, at only 27, died leaving a pregnant widow, Margaret (Davis) Witting, with a small son, Charles E. Witting, named for his father. Just 5 months after the tragic accident, Margaret gave birth to a second son, William, named for Charles’ twin brother.
According to an article printed by the Modern Mechanix, March, 1937, it was reported that Witting’s tombstone was, “designed after the old-fashioned type of freight caboose, the headstone is mute evidence of the work Witting so much loved. Members of the Uhrichsville chapter of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, of which Witting was a member, helped to erect the marker.”
Note: I first saw the gravestone above on the Website: www.graveaddiction.com. Beth Santore, the Webmaster, has photographed hundreds of cemeteries in Ohio, as well as, making photo forays into neighboring states. I highly recommend her Website, especially for those tramping around Ohio graveyards!
Paschall Mausoleum, Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Nashville, Tennessee
Through the hazy blue dim light of the interior of a mausoleum the dove carrying an olive sprig appears in the stained-glass window.
Many symbols found on gravestones have multiple meanings. The dove is one of those.
Several references in the Bible refer to the dove as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Matthew 3:16 reads, “And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him.” In Mark 1:10 the Bible says, “And Straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him.” Again in John 1:32, the Bible reads, “And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.”
Along with the dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit, the dove is also closely associated with peace, often depicted with a sprig of an olive in its beak. This, too, originated in the Bible. After the waters receded in the story of Noah, the dove appears. Genesis 8:11, “And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.” It was a sign of God’s forgiveness.
The dove, with its white color, is also a symbol of purity and innocence and for that reason is often found the tombstones of children.
Thus the dove symbolizes the Holy Spirit, peace, and purity.
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. As pictured in the stained-glass window above in the Charles Buck Mausoleum in the Metairie Cemetery at New Orleans, Louisiana, the white lilies symbolize the hope of eternal life.
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.
Folsom Family Mausoleum, Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis
The stained glass window in this Crown Hill Cemetery mausoleum at Indianapolis features a single white calla lily in full blossom surrounded by three stems with buds. The calla lily is a stunner with its long slender stem, brilliant white flowers, and broad leaves. Though it is called a lily it is actually not in the flower family liliacea.
The South African native is actually a cousin to the jack-in-the pulpit and is in the family of araceae. In Africaans the calla lily is called the Varkoor, or pig’s ear, because that is what they believed it resembled. The calla lily was imported out of South Africa in the later part of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It almost immediately became associated with Easter and is sometimes referred to as an Easter lily.
The calla lily represents majestic beauty and is often used on funerary art to symbolize marriage. In some cases, they can also represent the resurrection.
Harry B. Helmsley March 4, 1909 – January 4, 1997
Leona Mindy Roberts Helmsley July 4, 1920 – August 20, 2007
Harry and Leona Helmsley were a New York power couple who owned real estate and hotels throughout the city. They made a multi-billion dollar fortune in real estate properties including the Empire State Building, the crown jewel of Manhattan. By 1989, Leona managed 23 of the Helmsley hotels and was featured in the advertising campaign that helped make her a household name.
She was dubbed the “Queen of Mean” because of the way she treated her employees. In a famous tax evasion trial, one of Leona’s employees testified that Leona said, “Only the little people pay taxes.” She was convicted and sentenced to prison. She served 18 months in a federal prison.
The Helmsley’s are buried in a neo-classical Doric-style mausoleum in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. In a nod to their success in the real estate market in New York, the mausoleum features three stained-glass windows that depict the city skyline.
In this stained-glass window in the E.B. Cones and E.L. Patrick Mausoleum in the Crown Hill Cemetery at Indianapolis, Indiana, an array of cherubim–angels–are depicted. Cherubim are one of nine orders or choirs of angels which are organized into three spheres, with three choirs in each sphere. According to Christian tradition, the first sphere, which is made up of the Seraphim, Cherubim, and the Thrones, are considered the closet to Heaven. In Ezekiel 10:14, the Cherubim are described as having four likenesses or four faces, “And every one had four faces; the first face was the face of a cherub, and the second face was the face of a man, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.” Cherubim are most always depicted as chubby babies.
Edward Fay Claypool Mausoleum, Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana
Many mausoleums are embellished with ornate stained-glass windows. The angel featured in this window is carrying a horn with one hand and pointing upward with the other. The angel uses the horn to announce the coming resurrection. The other hand is pointing the way!
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The Raven
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
On October 8th, 1849, at 4:00 p.m., 23 hours after Edgar Allan Poe died in mysterious circumstances, he was buried on a raw and stormy afternoon. His funeral was a hasty three-minute service with less than a dozen people in attendance. Poe, a noted literary critic, poet, fiction writer, and the creator of the modern detective story was buried in a homemade coffin, handmade shroud, and an unmarked grave next to his grandfather’s grave in the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground at Baltimore, Maryland.
His cousin, Neilson Poe, later purchased a marker for Edgar Allan Poe but in a freak accident, a train jumped the tracks and smashed the marker that had been carved to mark his grave. So, his grave remained unnoticed under a stone simply marked “No. 80”. After a newspaper article was published describing Poe’s unmarked grave, a local school teacher, Sara Sigourney Rice, took up the torch to raise money to have a monument designed for Poe.
On October 1, 1875, Poe’s body was moved from the back of the graveyard to a place of prominence just inside the West gates. A white marble monument was designed by architect George A. Frederick. Featured in the center of the shaft is a medallion with a bas-relief of Poe’s bust by artist Adalbert Volck. The new monument was dedicated on October 17th in a ceremony that included poet Walt Whitman.
Ten years later, Poe’s wife, Virginia, whose bones in a macabre twist had been hidden under William Gill’s bed, was finally laid to rest next to her husband.
Poe’s original grave was later marked, paid for by Orrin Painter, in the 1920s by with a gravestone depicting a raven, a nod to his most famous poem.
Recently my friend, Caroline Weiss, snapped this picture of Elvis Presley’s grave on her visit to Graceland, Elvis’ Memphis, Tennessee estate.
It made me think about the annual Forbes list of the top earners from the grave. Yes, those entertainers who are bringing in the most money AFTER their careers and their lives ended.
The top performer this past year was the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, with the King of Rock ‘n Roll, Elvis Presley, coming in a distant second, but then Elvis has been dead for over 36 years!
Elvis Presley is buried on his estate. A relatively plain bronze grave ledger covers the memento-strewn grave that thousands flock to see every year.
The top five earners are:
Michael Jackson, 160 million, died June 25, 2009
Elvis Presley, 55 million, died August 16, 1977
Charles Schultz, 37 million, died February 12, 2000
Liz Taylor, 25 million, died March 23, 2011
Bob Marley, 18 million, died May 11, 1981
Gravely Speaking 