Gravely Speaking

Masonic Cemetery, New Orleans, Louisiana

In front of a Masonic society tomb in the Masonic Cemetery at New Orleans, established in 1865, is a small white-marble step with three symbols—the compass, the trowel, the 24 inch gauge.  Each symbol is used in the Masonic iconography to build a metaphor based on how these tools are used by operative masons and how a Freemason is to live his life.

The compass

The compass draws a circle—masons know that they are to keep their life in check and within the boundary of what is right.

The trowel

The trowel is one of the simplest tools in the masons’ bag, used to spread mortar to connect one layer of brick to another.  The metaphor with this tool is that it is an emblem to remind masons to spread a different kind of connector—brotherly love and affection.

The 24 inch gauge

The twenty four inch gauge is a reminder to all masons to make sure that they are wise about dividing their time.   Every day is to be portioned out so give time for God, Work and Rest.

Masonic Cemetery, New Orleans, Louisiana

Lakewood Cemetery at Minneapolis. Minnesota

The incised design of the double-headed eagle is centered inside a variant of the Maltese cross, a version known as a Formee Pattee.

This version is on found on a light-gray granite obelisk monument erected to honor the Ancient Free & Accepted Masons of Minnesota, Khurum Sunlight Lodge No. 112 of Minnetonka, Minnesota.

Lakewood Cemetery at Minneapolis, Minnesota

Woodland Cemetery, Des Moines, Iowa

The double-headed eagle with a crown and a small triangle with the letters 32 inside also represents the 32-degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.  Again the eagle clutches a banner with the motto: “SPES MEA IN DEO EST”, Latin for “My hope is in God.”  But, in this version the eagle is surmounted on a cross potent.  The cross potent is an ancient heraldic symbol, also referred to as the crutch cross.  The cross potent is made up of four lengths of cross of equal lengths with crossbars on the ends.

Two such examples were found on a zinc monuments in the Woodland Cemetery at Des Moines, Iowa.  One example was the elaborate monument of Wesley Redhead, died January 9, 1891, aged 64 years.

Woodland Cemetery, Des Moines, Iowa

The example below is on the zinc obelisk marker of Edward Payson Drake, who was born May 1, 1856, and died February 20, 1943.

Woodland Cemetery, Des Moines, Iowa

Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, Minnesota

The double headed eagle without the crown and the triangle represents the 32-degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.  The banner being clutched by the eagle has a different motto: “SPES MEA IN DEO EST”.  That is Latin for “My hope is in God.”

The double headed eagle is an ancient symbol that has been associated with many empires including the Byzantine Empire as early as the 1400s, the Seljuk Turks, the Holy Roman Empire, the Russian Empire, and more recently, the Albanian Coat of Arms, adopted in 1992, or the Coat of Arms of Montenegro adopted in 2004.

The double-headed eagle was adopted by the Scottish Rite for use by the 33^rd Degree Masons.  In this image found in the Lakewood Cemetery at Minneapolis, Minnesota, the body of the double-headed eagle is copper with the crown and the radiating medallion above cast in brass.  The eagle clutches a banner with the Latin phrase, “DEUE MEUMQUE JUS”, meaning, “God and my right”.

Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, Minnesota

A common and oft heard remark from Christians is that when they die they will go to Heaven and meet with St. Peter at the “Pearly Gates” when they enter the Kingdom.  This is such a popular scenario that there are entire Web sites devoted to St. Peter-at-the-Pearly-Gates jokes!

In religious paintings, St. Peter is often shown with keys, referring to the Matthew 16:18-19: “And I say also unto thee, That thou are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.  And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

The term “Pearly Gates” also has its origin in a Biblical passage, Revelation 21:21: “And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate (sic) was one pearl; and the street of the city pure gold, and it were transparent glass.”

The Beaman Family gravestone, in the Lakewood Cemetery at Minneapolis, Minnesota, has an open gate, a common symbol found in American cemeteries.  Often the gates have stars, a single, star, a dove, or a banner above the open gates.

Garland Brooks Cemetery, Columbus, Indiana

What is different about this open gate motif on the Beaman Family Monument is that it is cast in bronze and built into the monument, not merely carved into the face of the gravestone.  It is also different because passing through the open gates is a sail boat as if the smooth waters allowed the soul gentle and safe passage on the placid waters on the way to Heaven.

Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, Minnesota

The open gates are central to the Last Judgment.  The gates represent a passageway from one realm to the next.  The gates are the portal for saved souls to make their passage from the Earthly realm to the Heavenly realm upon Christ’s return.

Walnut Hill Cemetery, Council Bluffs, Iowa

A stalk of corn is carved into the Bone Family gravestone in the Walnut Hill Cemetery at Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Corn is an ancient American crop that has been exported to all corners of the world.  More than 300,000 million tons of corn are grown in the United States every year.  It is not only ubiquitous in our Midwestern fields but corn syrup is in nearly every food on the grocery store shelf.

It is right and fitting then that corn represents fertility since its abundance is obvious.  It also represents rebirth in funerary art.

A large sphinx sets across the grass circle from the Gothic chapel in the Mount Auburn Cemetery at Cambridge, Massachusetts.  The statue, sculpted by Martin Milmore, is a massive eight feet tall and fifteen feet long.

Carved into the sides of the base of the sculpture is a Latin inscription:

AMERIC CONSERVATA,

AFRICAN LIBERATA,

POPULO MAGNO ASURGENTE,

HEROUM SANGUINE FUSO.

Which translates to:

AMERICAN UNION PRESERVED,

AMERICAN SLAVERY DESTROYED

BY THE UPRISING OF A GREAT PEOPLE

BY THE BLOOD OF FALLEN HEROES.

The creation of the sphinx was funded by Dr. Jacob Bigelow, one of the founders of the great cemetery.   It was commissioned to commemorate the end of the American Civil War.  This sphinx is a fusing of symbolism—Egyptian and American.  The face of the sphinx is an Anglo-American woman mounted on the powerful body of an African lion.  She wears the Egyptian royal headdress embellished with an American bald eagle.  And her necklace is a six-pointed star military medal.  Dr. Bigelow’s idea was to combine the symbolism in a way to symbolize how postwar white and black America would work together to build an American future with “illimitable progress.”

Bigelow’s sphinx to commemorate the Civil War eschewed the conventions of the day regarding public monuments in the North and the South.  While the enigmatic sphinx is well within the Egyptian Revival movement that was popular during the 19^th Century, it certainly was outside what most communities built as Civil War memorials. Most communities erected memorials of statues of Union or Confederate volunteers and bas-reliefs of battles.  The sphinx represented a break from the traditional.  While monumental in scale, as was the Lion of Lucerne, the sphinx does not extoll martial valor, courage, or strength.  The face of the sphinx was an allegorical representation of Freedom, Liberty, or Hope.  The message of the sphinx itself was that while it was looked upon as a figure of antiquity, was now a figure looking forward—a new nation breaking the bonds of the past and rising from the bloodshed to a new greatness.

Unfortunately, for Bigelow, the meaning of the statue was almost immediately misunderstood, and now his monument is more of a curiosity today than what he had intended.

For a more in-depth read about the Bigelow sphinx read “The Americanized Sphinx” written by Dr. Joy M. Giguere, Assistant Professor of History at Ivy Tech Community College at Fort Wayne, Indiana and the Indiana State Chairperson for the Association of Gravestone Studies.