Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Cemetery Tour #4, Epitaphs #4
Yesterday I had a busy busy day at work. Last night we went to Forest Hill Cemetery. It's 220 acres and adjacent to Park Hill, where we visited last week. The original cemetery was in the eastern part of Duluth and was moved to the present location in the 1870's to 1890's.
First we stopped by the office where the caretaker showed us some large indoor vaults. Some were large with interred bodies and smaller ones with cremated remains. The caretaker called the area with the smaller ones the "crematery". He said that the funeral industry is changing, 50% of the funerals in his cemetery are cremations now.
There are four miles of road, narrow and winding, up and down steep hills. We drove around quite a lot but did get out to walk around a couple of times. We saw where Elizabeth Congdon, the Glensheen heiress and murder victim is buried. I took a photo of the large beautiful cross in front of her and many other ancestor graves in the Congdon family. The sun was at the wrong angle, so probably it won't turn out well.
We saw two family names, related to the Congdons that were familiar to me. My Dad used to work as a guide on the river and as sort of a caretaker for the wealthy people who lived there. Even though we eagerly asked him about it when we were kids, he never talked about it much. Only said that he didn't like working for rich people! He stopped working for them shortly after he and my mother married, so it was history by the time we came along.
There were some really beautiful markers and mausoleums in this cemetery. Our instructor told us it's the rich people's cemetery and next week we go to the Potter's Field for the Poor Farm, a sanitarium and an early hospital. She said we would see quite a difference from the ornate stones in the Forest Hill Cemetery.
When I was driving to the family reunion on Monday, we drove by several cemeteries which I mentioned, as in "Look! There's a cool looking cemetery!" and my Mom laughed and shook her head, saying "You really have quite the obsession with them now, don't you?" But now she wants to go and look at some interesting cemeteries too. She's been bitten by the bug!
Epitaphs #4
Personalities
EVERYBODY LOVES SOMEBODY SOMETIME
Dean Martin
Truth and History.
21 Men. The Boy Bandit King
He Died As He Lived
William H. Bonney "Billy the Kid"
Mary Lefavour
died 1797
aged 74 years
Reader pass on and ne'er waste your time
On bad biography and bitter rhyme.
For what I am this cumb'rous clay insures,
And what I was, is no affair of yours.
Topsfield, Massachusetts
I was somebody.
Who, is no business
of yours.
Stowe, Vermont
Here lies the body of
Jane Gordon
With mouth almighty
and teeth accordin!
Marblehead, Massachusetts
Cold is my bed, but oh, I love it,
For colder are my friends above it.
Calvary Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois
Here lies a man who while he lived
Was happy as a linnet.
He always lied while on the earth
And now he's lying in it.
On the four husbands of Ivy Saunders:
Here lies my husbands 1 - 2 - 3
As still as men could ever be.
As for the fourth: Praise be to God
He still abides above the sod:
Abel, Seth and Leidy were the first 3 names
and to make things tidy I'll add his - James.
Shutesbury
Here lies
Suzannah Ensign;
Lord she is thin *
(* Should read "thine") Cooperstown, New York
On a miser who wanted to save money:
Thorp's Corpse.
When his wife died, the wording was changed to:
Here lieth Thorpses Corpses.
The dust of
Melantha Gribbling
Swept up at last
by the Great Housekeeper
Woodville, England
On a hypochondriac's grave:
See. I told you
I was SICK!
Littleton, Colorado
On Margaret Daniels grave at Hollywood Cemetery Richmond, Virginia:
She always said her feet were killing her
but nobody believed her.
Surnames caused rhyming problems for the stonecutter.
Here beneath this pile of stones
Lies all thats left of Sally Jones.
Her name was Smith, not Jones,
But Jones was used to rhyme with stones.
Here lie the remains of
Thomas Woodhen.
The most amiable of husbands
And excellent of men.
His real name was Woodcock
But it wouldn't come in rhyme.
Dunoon, Scotland
There are several funny ones, my favorites are: Thorpses Corpses and Suzannah Ensign.
First we stopped by the office where the caretaker showed us some large indoor vaults. Some were large with interred bodies and smaller ones with cremated remains. The caretaker called the area with the smaller ones the "crematery". He said that the funeral industry is changing, 50% of the funerals in his cemetery are cremations now.
There are four miles of road, narrow and winding, up and down steep hills. We drove around quite a lot but did get out to walk around a couple of times. We saw where Elizabeth Congdon, the Glensheen heiress and murder victim is buried. I took a photo of the large beautiful cross in front of her and many other ancestor graves in the Congdon family. The sun was at the wrong angle, so probably it won't turn out well.
We saw two family names, related to the Congdons that were familiar to me. My Dad used to work as a guide on the river and as sort of a caretaker for the wealthy people who lived there. Even though we eagerly asked him about it when we were kids, he never talked about it much. Only said that he didn't like working for rich people! He stopped working for them shortly after he and my mother married, so it was history by the time we came along.
There were some really beautiful markers and mausoleums in this cemetery. Our instructor told us it's the rich people's cemetery and next week we go to the Potter's Field for the Poor Farm, a sanitarium and an early hospital. She said we would see quite a difference from the ornate stones in the Forest Hill Cemetery.
When I was driving to the family reunion on Monday, we drove by several cemeteries which I mentioned, as in "Look! There's a cool looking cemetery!" and my Mom laughed and shook her head, saying "You really have quite the obsession with them now, don't you?" But now she wants to go and look at some interesting cemeteries too. She's been bitten by the bug!
Epitaphs #4
Personalities
EVERYBODY LOVES SOMEBODY SOMETIME
Dean Martin
Truth and History.
21 Men. The Boy Bandit King
He Died As He Lived
William H. Bonney "Billy the Kid"
Mary Lefavour
died 1797
aged 74 years
Reader pass on and ne'er waste your time
On bad biography and bitter rhyme.
For what I am this cumb'rous clay insures,
And what I was, is no affair of yours.
Topsfield, Massachusetts
I was somebody.
Who, is no business
of yours.
Stowe, Vermont
Here lies the body of
Jane Gordon
With mouth almighty
and teeth accordin!
Marblehead, Massachusetts
Cold is my bed, but oh, I love it,
For colder are my friends above it.
Calvary Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois
Here lies a man who while he lived
Was happy as a linnet.
He always lied while on the earth
And now he's lying in it.
On the four husbands of Ivy Saunders:
Here lies my husbands 1 - 2 - 3
As still as men could ever be.
As for the fourth: Praise be to God
He still abides above the sod:
Abel, Seth and Leidy were the first 3 names
and to make things tidy I'll add his - James.
Shutesbury
Here lies
Suzannah Ensign;
Lord she is thin *
(* Should read "thine") Cooperstown, New York
On a miser who wanted to save money:
Thorp's Corpse.
When his wife died, the wording was changed to:
Here lieth Thorpses Corpses.
The dust of
Melantha Gribbling
Swept up at last
by the Great Housekeeper
Woodville, England
On a hypochondriac's grave:
See. I told you
I was SICK!
Littleton, Colorado
On Margaret Daniels grave at Hollywood Cemetery Richmond, Virginia:
She always said her feet were killing her
but nobody believed her.
Surnames caused rhyming problems for the stonecutter.
Here beneath this pile of stones
Lies all thats left of Sally Jones.
Her name was Smith, not Jones,
But Jones was used to rhyme with stones.
Here lie the remains of
Thomas Woodhen.
The most amiable of husbands
And excellent of men.
His real name was Woodcock
But it wouldn't come in rhyme.
Dunoon, Scotland
There are several funny ones, my favorites are: Thorpses Corpses and Suzannah Ensign.
