Gravely Speaking

Fairview Cemetery, Council Bluffs, Iowa

The inscription on the original tombstone:

AMELIA JENKS

WIFE OF

D. C. BLOOMER

DIED

DEC. 30, 1894

AGED

76Ys. 7Ms. 3Ds.

A pioneer of woman’s

Emancipation

DEXTER C.

BLOOMER

DIED

FEB. 24, 1900

AGED

83 Ys. 7Ms. 20Ds.

Inscription on the granite block placed later in front of the original tombstone:

IN 1855 THE BLOOMERS CAME TO COUNCIL BLUFFS.  AMELIA WAS ALREADY INTERNATIONALLY PROMINENT FOR HER ADVOCATION OF TEMPERANCE AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS.  IN THE LILY, THE MAGAZINE SHE EDITED AND PUBLISHED, SHE PROMOTED DRESS, REFORM, PUBLICIZING THE BLOOMER GARMENT.  LOCALLY DEXTER HELPED ESTABLISH A BANK AND THE COMMUNITY SCHOOL SYSTEM AND SERVED ON CITY AND STATE SCHOOL BOARDS.  HE WROTE AMELIA’S BIOGRAPHY IN 1895.

Amelia Bloomer’s name has become synonymous with the loose fitting clothing that she advocated women to wear even though it was not her creation.  Elizabeth Smith Miller designed the long baggy pantalettes that narrowed at the ankles to give women more freedom of movement than the floor-length skirts which were popular during the Victorian Era.  Because Amelia Bloomer was a strong advocate of “Bloomers” in her magazine, The Lily, her name became attached to the style. 

But her influence was more far reaching than the reform clothing she advocated.  Her magazine became the voice of the suffragette movement and gave a place for leaders such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to share their reform ideas for temperance and women’s suffrage.

The gray-veined white marble tombstone at the Fairview Cemetery at Council Bluffs, Iowa, is badly weathered, the finial that topped the monument is missing and the inscription is faint but legible.  An additional granite block with an inscription has been placed in front of the original tombstone but is not set. 

Gatling Monument, Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana

DR. RICHARD JORDAN GATLING

INVENTOR OF THE

GATLING GUN

BORN HERTFORD CO., NORTH CAROLINA

SEPT. 12^TH, 1818.

DIED NEW YORK CITY,

FEBR. 26^TH, 1903.

THE HIGHEST HONORS THAT THE WORLD CAN BOAST

ARE SUBJECTS FAR TOO LOW FOR MY DESIRE

THE BRIGHTEST BEAMS OF GLORY ARE AT MOST

INCOMPLETE COMPARED TO MY BELIEF

IN THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

JEMIMA TAYLOR SANDERS

HIS BELOVED AND SAINTLY WIFE

BORN MAY 27^TH, 1837.

WHOSE FORTY-EIGHT YEARS OF MARRIED LIFE

AS WIFE AND MORTHER WERE FILLED

WITH UNFAILING TENDERNESS AND DEVOTION.

Serial inventor, Richard Gatling, invented the wheat drill, a hemp break machine, a steam plow, a motor driven plow, a screw propeller, a rice-sowing machine, and a seed planter.

The seed planter led Gatling to invent his signature creation, the one that bears his name—the Gatling gun.  The forerunner to the machine gun, the Gatling gun, was notable for the multi-barrel design which allowed quick synchronized firing and reloading that gave the gun time to cool down during the cyclic firing.  The Gatling gun was patented November 4, 1862.  Gatling naively believed his creation would make warfare so horrific that wars would be too cruel to fight.

Gatling had been a clerk, a school teacher and a merchant, but when he fell ill with small pox it piqued his interest in medicine.  He enrolled in the Ohio Medical College and graduated with a M.D. in 1850, though he never practiced medicine.  Gatling moved to Indianapolis where he was a successful entrepreneur.  He married Jemima Taylor Sanders, 19 years his junior and the daughter of a prominent Indianapolis doctor.  Jemima’s sister, Zerelda married the Governor of Indiana, David Wallace.

Gatling and his wife, Jemima, are buried in the Crown Hill Cemetery at Indianapolis.  The monument looks like a mausoleum, but is in fact a granite slab of a classical design featuring a pediment supported by four Doric columns.