Ivy Covered Graves

Cemeteries abound with flowers, trees and plantings – all manner of living things with which to remember those who have passed.  It is not unusual to come across a grave or two that is covered in ivy.  In older cemeteries, especially Victorian and Rural Garden cemeteries, ivy was a perpetual favorite, blanketing many graves, both carved in stone and living plants. It has been said, "Ivy still mourns when others have forgotten the dead."

Ivy symbolizes many attributes.  Among them are friendship, affection, faithfulness, strength, and immortality.  The Celts viewed ivy as an omen of death and spiritual rebirth. The Druids associated ivy with strength and determination. Ivy grows in twists and turns, providing a strong, durable bond to all that it touches. In the Christian religion, ivy is a symbol of Christmas and rebirth.

The ivy plant is native to Europe and grows naturally in cemeteries throughout England.  Although a pretty vine, ivy has a reputation of causing harm to gravestones, brick walls, and trees. 

Recent studies conducted in Europe indicated that the climbing roots of the ivy did not damage solidly mortared walls.  Research also showed that ivy actually protected walls and cemetery stones from further damage caused by the effects of weathering, drastic temperature changes and pollution.

 In the U.S., problems have proven to be more significant since ivy does not have any natural enemies to control its growth.  American trees are overwhelmed by ivy and die due to disease or aggressive ivy growth.  We Americans transplanted ivy to our cemeteries during the Victorian age as symbols of immortality.  In many cases the ivy has proven to be very durable by taking over tombstones and graveyards. 

Cemetery restoration groups will leave an ivy vine as part of the original planting, as they work to maintain the status of the burial grounds and the tomb stones.  But cemeteries throughout the country have implemented management control procedures to deal with ivy and it’s potential damaging effects on monuments and stones.  Many will no longer allow ivy to be planted.

As intended by those who originally planted it, ivy lends a shot of color onto the otherwise dark and drab winter cemetery grounds, and gives us hope for renewal and immorality.

In 1836, Charles Dickens wrote a poem that appeared in his novel Pickwick Papers about the ivy:

Ivy Green

Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green,


That creepeth o'er ruins old!


Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,


In his cell so lone and cold.


The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,


To pleasure his dainty whim:


And the mouldering dust that years have made


Is a merry meal for him.


Creeping where no life is seen,


A rare old plant is the Ivy green.



Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,


And a staunch old heart has he.


How closely he twineth, how tight he clings


To his friend the huge Oak Tree!


And slyly he traileth along the ground,


And his leaves he gently waves,


As he joyously hugs and crawleth round


The rich mould of dead men's graves.


Creeping where grim death hath been,


A rare old plant is the Ivy green.



Whole ages have fled and their works decayed,


And nations have scattered been;


But the stout old Ivy shall never fade,


From its hale and hearty green.


The brave old plant, in its lonely days,


Shall fatten upon the past:


For the stateliest building man can raise


Is the Ivy's food at last.


Creeping on where time has been,


A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

                           ~ Charles Dickens

~ Joy

The High Mortality Rate of Infants and Children

A lamb is the one of the
symbols for a child's grave

September is Infant Mortality Awareness Month and an appropriate time to explore the tombstones of infants and children.

Cherubs mark childrens' graves 

Child 'sleeping' 

I love going to the cemetery, strolling, thinking, taking photos. But when I come across a stone marking the death of a young child, a baby, or an infant, the colors of life, in that moment, seem to drain a bit.  In the twenty-first century, it seems so wrong for a person to die young, but before the mid-twentieth century, it was common.  In fact, the farther back in time you go, the more it was to be expected. 

Three Lambs indicate that
3 children are buried here

Mortality rates for children, those ten and under, have always been high.  No matter what a parents social standing, children died due to infections, disease and poor nutrition.  Poor prenatal and postnatal care were also factors.  Not until the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, did scientists and doctors even begin to understand what caused certain illnesses and how they were spread.

Lamb in shell for protection

Born and died same day

From Colonial times to the latter 1800’s, 25 to 30% of white infants would not survive their first year.  The rate for black babies was around 35%.  Probability and expectancy was high that a typical family would loose at least one infant during its first 12 months.

Mother and 3 children

George lived almost 4 months.
His mother also died.

Two children
from one family

Early pioneer women had a child approximately every 26 to 30 months.  According to the Indiana Historical Society, “Over sixty percent had six to nine children, thirty percent had ten or more, and only ten percent gave birth to less than six children in their lifetime. According to 1840 census figures, women in Hamilton County, Indiana had an average of eight children during their lifetime.”

Mother and baby
floating on cloud

Mother portrayed as an angel
carrying her baby away

During that time, mothers fared little better.  Puerperal fever, an infection of the uterus, usually contracted after delivery and caused by doctors and midwives not washing their hands, was the main cause of death during childbirth in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  Breech births also added to the toll, compromising mother and infant. A breech birth sometimes led to unstoppable bleeding in the mother and suffocation of the baby.

Four lambs signify the deaths
of four children

Child who died before
leading infant to heaven

Living conditions in the U.S. inner cities were terrible and also contributed to high infant mortality rates.  Poverty brought on unclean living conditions, a lack of sanitation, and the quick spread of disease from one to another.  All of these conditions made inner city infant mortality rates around 30%. It took a better understanding of what roles sanitation and prenatal health played in order to enact such regulations as the 1897 New York law mandating that children be vaccinated against smallpox. 

Infant daughter

Infant son

It's interesting to note that many infants were not named when they were born.  Some were not given a name until they had reached that crucial first birthday.  If a baby died during the first few days of life, it was probably not named.  There are many stones in the cemetery, which are only identified as “Infant,” or “Baby.”  Many times gender was not indicated.   Parents and family members simply referred to the infant as he or she, waiting to see if it would survive.  The longer an infant survived, the more likely it went through the naming and baptism ceremonies.  Although this seems cold by today’s standards, it could be argued that by not naming an infant, whose rate of survival was only 70 to 75%, parents and family members were able to remain somewhat detached, finding a coping mechanism of sorts, in the lose of so many children in one family.

Only a first name

Only parents identified

In 1900, the rate of infant survival was still only 80% - with a 20% expectancy that the infant would not make it to the age of 10.  Once a child reached tens years of age, he or she still had only a 60% chance to reach adulthood.  Causes remained the same, poor nutrition, infectious diseases and sanitation.  Once doctors understood what caused cholera, small pox, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, whooping cough, diphtheria and polio, and how these diseases were spread, cures were embarked upon.

Child's stone

It is amazing, and sobering, to realize how many families lost children from the settling of this country, up to the mid-1900’s.  And while we in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, have seen those numbers drastically reduced within the past 60 years, other countries such as  Angola, Afghanistan and Nigeria continue to have high infant mortality rates due to a lack of sanitation, poor nutrition and the spread of infectious diseases.  Let us hope it does not take another sixty years for changes to be made in those countries.

~ Joy 

Grave Humor for April Fools' Day

Today is April 1^st - April Fools’ Day.  A day celebrated around the world with jokes, hoaxes and pranks.  Also known as All Fools’ Day, the tradition is believed to have begun in France in the 1500’s.   

Although wit is not something you expect to find in a cemetery, our ancestors did have a sense of humor about life…and death. Epitaphs, those tributes and verses engraved on tombstones, can provide a bit more insight into the deceased’s character, all the while offering it with a wink and a nod.  With that in mind, I thought a bit of  ‘grave humor’ was in keeping with the day.

In Hillside Cemetery at Eastport, Maine, Lorenzo Sabine was buried in 1877.  On his stone is one simple word,             Transplanted

Boot Hill Cemetery

Tombstone, Arizona started in 1879 as a mining boomtown that grew up quick and grew up mean.  It briefly became part of the ‘Wild West,” where cattle ranchers, cow boys and carpet baggers all held sway, with a gun. It was during 1881 that Marshall Wyatt Earp and his brothers fought the cowboys at what became known as the shootout at O.K. Corral.  In the infamous Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone, almost 300 of these former citizens are buried and remembered with some interesting epitaphs.

Here lies Butch.

We planted him raw.

He was quick on the trigger

But slow on the draw.

Wells Fargo Agent, Lester Moore was also buried in Boot Hill with the following epitaph:

Here Lies

Lester Moore

Four slugs from a 44

No Les

No more

England is also the home of many cheeky inscriptions –

On the stone of Anna Wallace in a cemetery in Ribbesford, England is this supposed inscription:

The children of Israel wanted bread

And the Lord sent them manna

Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife

And the Devil sent him Anna

From a London cemetery comes this,

Owen Moore

Gone away

Owin’ more

Than he could pay

Even the barristers appear to have had a sense of humor.

Sir John Strange

Here lies an honest lawyer

And that is Strange

Rebecca Freeland was buried in an Edwalton, England cemetery in 1741 with this rejoinder –

She drank good ale

Good punch and wine

And lived to the age of 99

Some cleaver epitaphs may be a bit too clever.  When I researched to locate these, I found that the cemetery locations continued to change from one state to another, from one mention to another.  But, regardless of existence, they are humorous.

Here lies the body

Of Jonathan Blake

Stepped on the gas

Instead of the brake

Here lies the body of our Anna

Done to death by a banana.

It wasn’t the fruit that laid her low

But the skin of the thing that made her go.

This inscription has been reported in a cemetery in Hartscombe, England and also in New Jersey.  Same name, different days of death – in England on June 22, in New Jersey on June 30 but no year of death is given.

On June __,

Jonathan Fiddle

Went out of tune.

In Elkhart, Indiana the stone for S.B. McCracken, a teacher reads –

School is out.

Teacher has gone home.

The famous also have some epitaphs that produce chuckles –

 

Mel Blanc, the man behind hundreds of character voices for Warner Brothers Studios, went out with the tagline of every Warner Brother’s cartoon….

That’s All Folks

American singer, actor and 50’s Rat Pack member, Frank Sinatra closed out with a line from one of his songs,

The best is yet to come

Television host and media mogul, Merv Griffin ended his life segment with –

I will not be right back

After this message.

For Spike Milligan, an Irish comedian, writer and actor,

"Duirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite"

English translation:  “I told you I was ill.”

 It is also rumored that a similar epitaph exists in an unnamed cemetery in Georgia for a B.P. Roberts with the words -

I told you I was sick.

The sudden passing of John Belushi left us with a smile –

I may be gone but

Rock and Roll lives on.

Then there are the anonymous epitaphs:

Again, from England –

 

This spot is the sweetest I’ve seen in my life,

For it rises my flowers and covers my wife.

 ~

Beneath this silent stone is laid

A noisy antiquated maid

Who from her cradle talked to death

And ne’er before was out of breath.

This epitaph is seen in nineteenth century cemeteries throughout the U.S.

Behold and see as you pass by

For as you are, so once was I 


As I am now, so will you be

Prepare unto death and follow me

But someone supposedly felt a reply was needed to this plea and carved, somewhere - 

To follow you, I’ll not consent

For I don’t know which way you went.

And to close out with my favorite:

Here lies an Atheist.

All dressed up and no place to go.

Have a Happy April First, and remember in those immortal Main Ingredient song lyrics…

“Everybody plays the fool, sometimes……”

~ Joy

Gravestone Inscriptions – The Final Say

Gravestone inscriptions are the text we find on headstones, monuments, memorials, and tombstones, those epitaphs that honor the deceased.  An inscription may be as basic as a name, birth and/or death date.  Or it may include more information such as a relationship, an age, an occupation, organizational membership, military service, religious affiliation, even immigration. 

 

  

All of this information is valuable to the genealogist.  Especially when you consider that these inscriptions may be the only proof you will find of those obscure female ancestors and children who died young.  Many times maiden names are shown, marriage dates are listed, spouses and children are named.

A stone, which indicates a relationship such as Mother, Father, or Sister, helps us establish the fact that there are more ancestors in this lineage.

An occupational symbol can give you insight into how your ancestor earned his or her living, but also, the fact that they were proud of what they did.

Fraternal organizations are often specified on gravestones.  This information can lead you to further searches within these groups and their records

Military service can be indicated in a variety of ways and can even identify what unit was served in and what rank was held.

Religious affiliations can be denoted by special symbols, images, even the actual location of where someone is buried.

Symbols and icons are also used as a silent language that can tell us more about the deceased and their beliefs.  For example,

Conch shells indicate wisdom and man’s earthly journey.

A book can indicate an individuals profession, such as a writer or publisher, or may depict the book of life or the Bible.

 A lamb usually indicates the grave of a child and stands for innocence and purity.

 A lion indicate courage and power.  He is the guardian of the grave.

A draped stone signals the death of an adult and deep mourning, the last veil between life and death.

Even the headstone itself can indicate something about the deceased just by the size, shape or type of stone used for a marker.

The best and most accurate way to record gravestone inscriptions is with a camera.  With digital cameras, and now cell phone cameras, there is really little reason not to use this method to document your ancestor’s stone.

Again, a reminder – Never trust the information on a stone to be completely true.  There is always the possibility of errors having been made. Treat gravestone inscriptions as another wonderful research tool to keep you looking in the right direction.

~ Joy

Ready to get started but not sure where to look?  

Here are just a few sources that provide an abundance of cemetery records online:

http://www.cyndislist.com/cemetery.htm

http://www.interment.net/

http://www.findagrave.com/