29 August 2011

Ditto

From Riverview Cemetery, Baldwinsville, NY:

Three children of Roy & Elizabeth Mo...(?). They all seem to have died in January 1812, and the engraver saved some time ditto-marking the repeated phrases. It gets a little meta with the three headstones engraved in front of a pair of willow trees at the top of the marker.

28 August 2011

Man's best friend

From Savannah's Catholic Cemetery:

Large but otherwise normal. Except to the right of the cross...

...an added monument to Prince, "He loved his master." Aw.

Look even closer -- someone left a baseball behind for Prince!

26 August 2011

It's curtains

From Oakwood Cemetery, Syracuse, NY:

(Which I somehow apparently have not posted before; that, or I completely failed at my tagging system both here and in Picasa)


From Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans, LA:


An interesting detail to note on this one is that the death year for the husband is added on with a little red plate that matches the brick of the mausoleum and completely fails to match the rest of the epitaph.


Related post: Matched Set 1

25 August 2011

Fire!

I was going back over all my old photos and found one for which I somehow had not tagged an awesome "cause of death" epitaph! Shame on/kudos to me.

Unfortunately it's a bit blurry. Taken in Walnut Grove Cemetery (the non-Jamesville one), and between the cloudy sky, heavy tree cover, and the aging camera I had at the time, the low lighting was too much for a crisp shot. Sigh. And now I have no chance to re-take it. Anyhoo:

This is the headstone for Jennie Hutchinson, wife of Wm. S. Stewart, aged 36 years, who was Killed at the burning of the Southern Hotel, St. Louis, MO...

According to this, she was specifically "killed by the breaking of an improvised rope while being lowered by her husband from a fifth-story window." Yikes. This page has a NYT dispatch about the fire and a few images of the hotel.


Also, from Greenwood Cemetery, New Orleans, LA, another couple deaths by fire:

The overall monument

Close-up of the left panel:

To the Memory
of
Daniel S. Woodruff
Born November 9th, 1797
and
William McLeod
Born January 6th, 1800.
Close-up of the right panel:

Who were Killed while in the
active discharge of their duty
at the fire corner of Magazine
and Natchez Streets.
March 17th 1854.

24 August 2011

Stormy

There was a huge thunderstorm over New Orleans as I approached the city from Slidell, which was very entertaining to watch on the horizon as I crossed Lake Pontchartrain. It took a while to taper off, though, unfortunately for would-be cemetery explorers. Eventually it quit without cutting into my schedule too much, and I got to wander Greenwood and Metairie Cemeteries.

This is a photo from Greenwood at the end of the storm and the first peek of blue sky I got. (Though it did not actually mark the end of rain. I knew I should have kept my rain boots in my car.)


23 August 2011

An excellent epitaph

I applaud the man and/or his family, whoever was responsible for the simple but unique

Returned to cosmos for repairs

From the Catholic Cemetery, Savannah, GA.

Watching You

All the disembodied little faces watching you pass...

In Greenwood Cemetery, NOLA:
A pair of these sit at the corners of the Swiss Society mausoleum. Full view:



From Metairie Cemetery, NOLA:

 I do like the effect of the wings framing the little cherubs' faces, though they also emphasize the disembodiment of the heads.

A pair of bearded faces at the bottom of the handles of a decorative vase. Will be posting images of the rest of the monument at a later date.


And from the Catholic Cemetery in Savannah, GA:





Related post: Faces


22 August 2011

Artfully broken

From Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans, LA:


I'm not even sure how functional this one can be, but it's definitely very lovely and attention-grabbing, a mausoleum made to look like a gothic cathedral fallen into disrepair (me being a WW2 "fan," I tend to think "bombed-out"). Another view from the front:


14 August 2011

Room for Three More

From Saint Mary's Cemetery in Fayetteville, NY:


You'd think at least one name would have been etched in before the stone went up.

05 August 2011

Rock piles

From Mt. Hope Cemetery, Rochester, NY:


From Fairview Cemetery in... Sheldrake? Seneca County, NY, at least.

Vaguely reminiscent of a snowman but with boulders.