Who Visits Cemeteries?

by TCGS Member, Connie Estep

Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn aren’t the only ones. Stacia Gunderson plans her vacations around them visiting not at midnight, but during daylight to read the gravestones. She shared her passion for cemetery history and the symbolism found on older gravestones with us at the February 10^th TCGS meeting.

Older gravestones have a language all their own; the various pictures and symbols tell about the

people buried there. The significance of a flower or plant varies widely: daisies for innocence, ivy for immortality and fidelity, roses for beauty, a wheat sheaf for old age, and dogwood for resurrection to name a few. There are many web sites that show the symbols and their significance. I’ve listed a couple below.

Sometimes very old gravestones are extremely difficult to read. Stacia brought rubbings she made that clearly showed details from older gravestones. Rubbings must be done without damaging gravestones; she uses rubbing wax, essentially a three inch hockey puck crayon. Crayons themselves should not be used as their sharp points can cause damage. A kit is available with a book (including the necessary information), rubbing wax, paper, and other helpful items. (See the listing below)

A local cemetery she mentioned with particularly interesting gravestones is Riverview Heights in Kennewick (more than a hundred years old). Examples of white bronze gravestones may be found here.

           

Resources:

http://www.graveaddiction.com/symbol.html

http://msghn.org/usghn/symbols.html (U.S. Genealogy & History Network)

"The Old Stone Rubbing Kit: Preserving Epitaphs and Artwork from Historical Gravestones & Monuments" is available from Amazon.com