Centenarian Obelisk

 150 years ago, Jacob G. Miller, soldier of 1812, died on Sept. 2 in the 100th year of his age. Good for him!

This detail is near the base of a fairly detailed obelisk that sports an urn set in a little portico space, an anchor, some nice zig-zags, and the drapery around the mid-section has a delicate, almost lacy profile compared to the usual heavy-looking drapery we see.

This marker also commemorates:

Mary Johnson,
Wife of Jacob G. Miller,
Died April 30, 1840,
Aged 80 years.

(And coincidentally, I'm drafting this post on April 30, 2022 - the 182nd anniversary of her death day.)

Back to School Books

 

From Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans:

From Walnut Grove, Syracuse, New York:

From Greenwood Cemetery, New Orleans:

 

 

From Gibson Chapel Rural Cemetery, Cortland, NY:

 

Pops of color/colorful equines

 From South Onondaga Cemetery, Syracuse (-area), NY:

From Greenwood Cemetery, New Orleans, LA:

Some religious stained glass

From Rome Cemetery, Rome, NY:

90% sure this is the Good Samaritan

The exterior:

Note the stained glass set into the dormers.

From Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans, LA:

Symbolism Maximalism

 Fancy obelisk time, from Riverview Cemetery in Baldwinsville, NY:

Overall, typical obelisk. Got the draped tip and a wreath around it...

Rather than being for one person or family, this obelisk honors members of the Mohegan Lodge No. 33 of the International Order of Odd Fellows, instituted 1846. If you zoom in on the first picture, you'll see long lists of names (even a couple running onto the curved bit of the base).

Appropriately, they went wild on including symbols on the different faces of this interstitial plinth.

• Tent and crooks
• the all-seeing eye
• IOOF chain links

• a smokey urn (lamp?) on a pedestal [officially: altar of incense]
  

• fasces with scales - this one seems to be a combo of the IOOF sword balancing scales + bundle of sticks (not fasces)
  
• bow with 3 arrows
• clasped hands
• mother and children
  

• 3 chain links with axe
• heart in hand
• dove with olive branch
• open book (a bible)

 

Learn about these symbols:

• Odd Fellowship: Its History and Manual (1895) by Theodore A. Ross. Chapter 11 covers Emblems, Regalia, and Jewels.
  
• Bullock Museum: Independent Order of Odd Fellows Tracing Board
• tent, heart in hand, chain links, sword and scale, bow and arrows, bundle of sticks
• Off Fellows Guide: The Lost Symbols of Odd Fellowship
  
• chain links with axe
• Wisconsin Historical Society: Odd Fellows Poster
• dove, all-seeing eye, heart in hand, bible
• Garland IOOF Lodge #304: Odd Fellow Art
• no explanatory notes, but offers a slideshow of historic posters and other art depicting symbols

Related:

• Gravely Speaking post on an OOF cemetery gate
  

Poetry

 First post of summer! An epitaph poem that starts off with a call to the warm summer sun.

Warm summer sun shine kindly here.
Warm southern wind, blog softly here.
Green sod above, lie light, lie light.
Good night, dear heart, good night,
                                    good night.

Can a gravestone plagiarize? Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens' epitaph for daughter Susy who is buried in Elmira, NY. (Her stone apparently does give credit to the original!)

"I pledge allegiance to my flag..."

 Flag Day bonus post! Francis Bellamy, author of the pledge of allegiance, was a resident of Rome, NY, and his grave is well-advertised in Rome Cemetery. (Not particularly notable otherwise, other than being a pink granite for the flashy bit, though.)

"I pledge allegiance to my flag
and to the republic for which it stands
one nation indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all."

F. B.

Imagine hand-setting circular text

 A two-fer headstone from Ticonderoga, NY, Streetroad Cemetery: husband and wife who died within a couple months of each other. Their marker is one slab, slightly scored down part of the center to divide the halves. What caught my eye was the circular way the man's name was written on the left, though the rest of the text is linear:

ADAM HOVENDEN
Died
Nov. 11, 1856
AE. 48

MARGARET
Wife of
A. HOVENDEN
DIED
Sept. 18, 1856
AE. 46

The Mystery of H.H.H. (Spoilers, research ahead)

 I have this one tagged for the name (very alliterative) and for possibly having a typo/contraction. Er, two typos? A typo and a creative spelling?:

Hedwig Hermoine [sic] Handshke [sic] 1889-1918

Let me tell you, just doing a simple search was useless, as two-thirds of her name appear in Harry Potter! Even trying to -"harry potter" from Google results did not help to completely eliminate fanfics, and Forest Hill doesn't list all their residents.

Once this post gets crawled, it'll be the only result for "hedwig hermoine handshke." I'm sure that will drive ever so much traffic here!

There are some few records for Handshke as a surname (as opposed to Handshake, which it resembles) -- and lo and behold, it looks like her name is spelled correctly!

Based on the birth year, it seems she was nicknamed(?) Hattie, but her mother is listed as "Hermoine" so... I mean, really, there can't be a another family out there with this set of names. Surely not!  (The 1930 census puts the name as Hermine or Hermene.)

Fortunately, my library offers HeritageQuest, so I was able to actually read the 1910 census record. Her family were German immigrants. Hattie and her sister worked as a "saleslady" in her father's bakery (educated guess -- he was the proprietor of a bakery, so...). 

They lived on Whitesboro St. in Utica Ward 9, Oneida, New York.

• 1920 Utica map showing wards
• 1876 Utica map with shaded wards

 

 I'm still stumped on finding an obituary, if she had one. That 1918 death date is tantalizing, of course -- she wasn't at all old and there was that little flu bug running around then... The 1920 census still has both her parents and sister living, however. (The father would die by the 1930 census, however and mother and remaining daughter had moved over to Yorkville. Both of them disappear from the 1940 census.)

 

Ah! I feel like I know so much and so little still.

Kilroy was(n't) here

 These are rather your classic 18th century memento mori-style headstones, but I love the faces! They're much simpler and more cartoony than I usually see - hence my allusion to Kilroy.

In Memory of Mr. Samuel Lyman: who Died Febr. ye 4th 1754 in ye 34th Year of his Age.
As You are now
So once were we
As we are now,
So You must be.

In Memory of Elifabeth Lyman ye wife of Mr. Samll. Lyman who Died Febr. ye 28th 1751 in ye 48th Year of her Age.

Bonus: where Kilroy was:

From Woodlawn Cemetery, Syracuse, NY

May Day (bonus post)

 In honor of May Day, which is so many things across history, a bonus post of some ambient landscape photos from the cemeteries, bringing the flowers.

Roses in Cortland, NY

Buds in Cleveland, OH

Purple flowers in Rochester, NY

Daffodils in Syracuse, NY

Also, we're halfway to Halloween, i.e. the best holiday. Let's Persephone it up -- from goddess of spring to underworld queen:

Kerosene lanterns waiting to be claimed for the lantern tour at Sleepy Hollow, NY. A++ do recommend.

So.

So, obviously, for anyone who visits here at all deliberately and not just wandering in from a Google search, it's been about half an entire year since I last posted, in which I even promised I'd totally do better at this thing. Yeah.

Busy? Not really. I've just experienced a loss of will. I think about this blog a lot and feel guilty for not maintaining it, but honestly I have some negative associations with this whole thing and I haven't gotten past that yet. Stuff happened since I began it, and other stuff didn't happen, and so on. I don't know what to do with it. I don't want to drop it altogether, but at the same time, I obviously don't want to maintain it, either.

At the very least, instead of a wishy-washy overly optimistic hope for the future, here's a note leaving a realistically pessimistic hiatus-style message.

(Gravestone from Utica, NY, Forest Hill Cemetery)

Bouquets

Since it's Valentine's Day, flowers for you.

From Oakwood Cemetery, Syracuse, NY:

"Married Forever"

From Woodlawn Cemetery, Syracuse, NY:

Mt. Hope Cemetery, Rochester, NY:

From Rome Cemetery, Rome, NY:

From Chappell Hill Masonic Cemetery, Chappell Hill, TX:

Elementary

I was getting all caught up on my BBC Sherlock when I remembered some pertinent headstones from St. Agnes in Syracuse. I'm so glad I hadn't posted these sooner; the timing is much better for them now. :)

Along the front strip of the cemetery, parallel to the road and not too far apart from each other...

...Moriarty...

...and Holmes.

The Moriarty even includes a James Moriarty, though I doubt the neighboring Holmes included a Sherlock. However, elsewhere in the cemetery, the surname Sherlock can be found:

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.

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