Bloomers

Posted on June 2, 2013 by gravelyspeaking
Fairview Cemetery, Council Bluffs, Iowa

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. 

Bloomer[1]

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. 

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Asleep

Posted on May 28, 2013 by gravelyspeaking
Woodland Cemetery, Des Moines, Iowa

Woodland Cemetery, Des Moines, Iowa

Only sleeping

 

Dear Mother in Earth’s thorny paths,

How long thy feet have trod.

To find at last this peaceful rest,

Safe in the arms of God.

 

Sleep on sweet babe, and take thy rest,

God calls away when He thinks best.

 

Asleep in Jesus! Peaceful rest,

Whose waking is supremely blest.

 

 

Happy infant, early blest,

Rest, in peaceful slumber, rest.

 

 

There is rest in Heaven.

 

 

May he rest in peace.

 

 

Weep not, he is at rest.

 

 

Sleep on brother, thy work is done,

Jesus has come and borne thee home.

 

 

Asleep in Jesus!  Blessed sleep,

From which none ever wake to weep!

 

 

Alas! She has left us, her spirit has fled,

Her body now slumbers along with the dead.

 

 

To a glad dream of slumber, which wakens in bliss,

She hath passed to the world of the holy from this.

 

 

Death is but to sleep in Jesus,

When this life is o-er:

And to sorrows, sins, diseases,

Never to awaken more.

 

 

She sleeps in the valley so sweet,

But her spirit has taken its flight:

Lo! Her form is but dust ‘neath our feet,

While she is an angel of light.

 

 

Asleep in Jesus precious thought!

With peace and life eternal fraught:

He said—whose power upholds the sky—

Believing ye shall never die.

 

 

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,

By all their country’s wishes blest.

 

 

Rest, soldier, rest, thy warfare o’er,

Sleep the sleep that knows no breaking,

Dream of battlefields no more,

Days of danger, nights of waking.

 

 

He is not dead but sleepth.

He giveth his beloved sleep

 

 

Weep not, she is not dead, but sleepth.

 

 

Them also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

 

There are many epitaphs to be found in cemeteries that equate death to sleep and to rest.  Those words are meant to comfort the living.

Sometimes the gravestones themselves convey that metaphor.

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In the Woodland Cemetery at Des Moines, Iowa, the gravestone for three children of Jefferson Scott and Sarah Polk is made to look like a bedstead with three small pillows at the headboard, one pillow for each child.  The gravestone is badly weathered but the names of each of child was carved in an oval on the headboard.  The footboard is carved with their parents’ names, “Children of J. S. & Julia Polk“.

Jefferson Scott Polk was a highly successful Des Moines lawyer and business man.  He and his wife, Sarah Herndon Polk had six children, three of whom died in childhood—Lutie Lee (August 8, 1861-March 10, 1871; Daniel S. (March 8, 1870-March 12, 1871); Mary Blanton “Mollie” (December 22, 1854-May 22, 1863)—are buried next to their parents in the bedstead gravestone.

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!

 

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Budded on Earth

Posted on May 23, 2013 by gravelyspeaking
Greenbush Cemetery, Lafayette, Indiana

Greenbush Cemetery, Lafayette, Indiana

HERRMAN REINHARDT

BORN JULY 18, 1866.

DIED MARCH 17, 1887.

WHERE IMMORTAL SPIRITS REIGN

THERE WE SHALL MEET

AGAIN.

Life is fragile, especially young life.  Many funerary motifs represent children–shoes, seedpods, cribs, cherubs–but one of the most common is the hanging bud.  Often this symbol is coupled with the epitaph, “Budded on Earth, To bloom in Heaven”.

The broken rose bud displayed on this zinc monument represents the flower that did not bloom into full blossom, the life that was cut short before it had a chance to grow to adulthood.

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In God We Trust

Posted on May 22, 2013 by gravelyspeaking
St. Paul's Lutheran Church Cemetery, rural Indiana.

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church Cemetery, rural Indiana.

ROBERT

SON OF

 & E. BURRES

BORN

FEB. 19, 1836

DIED

JUNE 25, 1865.

HE WAS IN CO. D. 80 REG. IND. VOL.

THEN CONQUER WE MUST

FOR OUR CAUSE IT IS JUST

AND THIS BE OUR MOTTO

IN GOD WE TRUST.

This broken rounded-top white marble gravestone commemorating the grave of a Civil War soldier displays a soldier, though, weathered and difficult to discern, and a patriotic and reverential epitaph recognizing the solemn sacrifice for the ultimate cause of freedom.

 

 

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Fraternal Societies

Posted on May 21, 2013 by gravelyspeaking
City Cemetery, Seymour, Indiana

City Cemetery, Seymour, Indiana

WILLIAM D.

BLYTHE

BORN

OCT. 8, 1814

DIED

JUNE 2, 1877

The Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, offered customers many symbols that could be bolted into place on the zinc markers they produced, including symbols that represented fraternal societies that were very popular.  The marker above at the City Cemetery at Seymour, Indiana, displays a symbol of three links of chain, one of the most recognized symbols of the Odd Fellows.

Odd Fellows is an fraternal organization that formed in England in the 1700s as a service organization.  The American association was founded in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 26, 1819.

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Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling

Posted on May 18, 2013 by gravelyspeaking
Gatling Monument, Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana

Gatling Monument, Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana

DR. RICHARD JORDAN GATLING

INVENTOR OF THE

GATLING GUN

BORN HERTFORD CO., NORTH CAROLINA

SEPT. 12TH, 1818.

DIED NEW YORK CITY,

FEBR. 26TH, 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 27TH, 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.

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A Country Church

Posted on May 16, 2013 by gravelyspeaking

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ANNA

WIFE OF

JAMES CONOLY

BORN

March 19, 1848.

DIED

JAN. 21, 1881.

 

FRANK E.

BORN

APR. 3, 1880

DIED

JAN. 26, 1881.

ROSA C.

BORN

APR. 9, 1878

DIED

JAN. 17, 1884.

 

GEORGE

BORN

JUNE 9, 1870

DIED

SEPT. 4, 1870.

CHILDREN OF J. & A. CONOLY

The limestone monument in the St. Ambrose Catholic Church Cemetery at Seymour, Indiana, for the wife and children of James Conoly, is carved to look like a country church.  On the front of the church above the doorway, is carved, “MY WIFE”.  Three of the gothic windows on one side of the church have the inscription for three Conoly children who died.  On the back of the building is a scroll that lists the name, birth, and death dates for Anna, along with an epitaph that is now obscured and unreadable because it is so weathered.

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Infant child

Posted on May 12, 2013 by gravelyspeaking
Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana

Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana

INFANT SON

 Nov. 27, 1900

BURIED WASHINGTON CO., IND

At the base of the angel monument erected for the Wilkins Family is a plain white marble marker in memory of the infant son of Thomas and Alice Wilkins who was born and died on the same day.  The marker does not have an epitaph, but Mary Kim Schreck, my friend and fellow cemetery enthusiast, shared a poem with me that seems appropriate, written by Elizabeth Gaskell, July 4th, 1836.  The poem speaks to the loss of a grieving Mother at not only losing her child and what might have been but the untold thoughts she had of the child even during joyful times.  The visage of the little girl was never far from her Mother’s mind.  The Wilkins family had moved from Washington County, Indiana, where their infant son was buried, but next to their graves for eternity was a reminder of the infant son they lost 50 years before they died.

On Visiting the Grave of My Stillborn Little Girl
I made a vow within my soul, O Child,
When thou wert laid beside my weary heart,
With marks of death on every tender part
That, if in time a living infant smiled,
Winning my ear with gentle sounds of love
In sunshine of such joy, I still would save
A green rest for thy memory, O Dove!
And oft times visit thy small, nameless grave.
Thee have I not forgot, my firstborn, though
Whose eyes ne’er opened to my wistful gaze,
Whose sufferings stamped with pain thy little brow;
I think of thee in these far happier days,
And thou, my child, from thy bright heaven see
How well I keep my faithful vow to thee.

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Nesting in the tree

As my son and I took the picture of the angel, Zain noticed that an expectant Mother Robin had nested between the wings of the angel.  Barley peaking out, he noticed the little Mother and asked to snap her picture.  The photograph captures the life cycle in its essense and ultimate irony…rebirth in the spring on the wings of death and the sadness of winter.

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A guardian angel

Posted on May 10, 2013 by gravelyspeaking

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JOHNSON

ROBERT CLARENCE

1927-2006

A bewildered-looking angel is gingerly perched on top of the rounded top white marble tablet marking the grave of Robert Clarence Johnson in the Woodward Hill Cemetery at Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

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.

The Cherubim were to be guardian angels. In two places in the Bible, their role is described, first as guardians of the gates at the Garden of Eden and then of the Ark of the Covenant.

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The Old Rugged Cross

Posted on May 7, 2013 by gravelyspeaking
St. Ambrose Cemetery, Seymour, Indiana

St. Ambrose Cemetery, Seymour, Indiana

MARIAROSA

SCIARRA

DED. 11, 1847

OCT. 27, 1920

BORN AT CHIAUCI, ITALY

This dramatic monument erected for Mariarosa Sciarra is a depiction of a line from the iconic hymn “Rock of Ages” written by Reverend Augustus Montague Toplady in 1763 and first published in 1775.  The hymn has been a popular Christian standard for over a century.

At the turn of the 19th Century, postcards depicted a dramatic scene of a woman in a flowing dress being buffeted by a storm surrounded by stormy white-crested waves clinging to a cross illustrating the first two lines of the third stanza from the hymn:

“Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling”

The image above is a sculpture of those two lines of the great hymn.  This motif is found in full sculpture,  but also commonly found on white-bronze markers (blue-tinted cast zinc markers) made in Bridgeport, Connecticut.  The woman symbolizes faith.  The raging sea (not depicted in this sculpture–the woman rests upon a rock) is a metaphor for the sea of sin in which humankind lives, and the cross is the hope to which sinners cling to be saved.

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