Matters of Grave Concern - part 2
LOCAL writer, Colin Ella, has talked about amusing epitaphs to various groups over a wide area. In this new series he shares some of them with readers.
AS I said last week, gravestone inscriptions of long ago were not the sort of thing we see today so this week we look at more surprises.
I very much like this epitaph on the grave of Virginia Verdier Allen, aged 57, and seen in Mackinac Island Cemetery in North Michigan.'
She never lost her sense of wonder,
Approaching each day as a surprise packet
To be opened with enchantment'..
But back to some plain speaking ones as seen in this one from Ottawa.
'I laid my wife beneath this stone
For her repose and for my own.'
John Dryden wrote a very similar one in the words:
'Here lies my wife, here let her lie
Now she's at rest, and so am I.'
Sometimes a few simple words perhaps reveal a lifetime of drama as in:
'Papa loved Mamma, Mamma loved men
Mamma's in the graveyard, Papa's in the Pen.'
A Birmingham graveyard has this epitaph:
'Here lies the mother of children seven Four on earth and three in heaven
The three in heaven preferring rather
To die with mother than live with father.'
A Shrewsbury graveyard has these words:
'Here lies the body of Martha Dias
Who was always uneasy and not over pious
She lived to the age of three score and ten
And gave that to the worms she refused to the men.'
If this one is recorded in any graveyard I cannot say where:
'In joyous memory of George Jones
Who was President of the Newport Rifle Club.
Always missed.'
Here's one from not far from the Isle of Axholme in the graveyard at Selby:
'Here lies the body of Frank RoweParish Clerk and gravestone cutter
And this is writ to let you know
What Frank for others used to do
Is now for Frank done any another.'
A North Devon inscription reads:
'Here lies the body of Mary Anne
Safe in the arms of Abraham
All very well for Mary Anne
But how about poor Abraham.'
Here's another epitaph whose source is unknown but it is an example of others where names were altered to make the verse rhyme:
'Below the high Cathedral Stairs
Lie the remains of Agnes Pears
Her name was Wiggs - it was not Pears
But Pears was put to rhyme with stairs.'
Clearly, at one time there was a bit of a business made of epitaph writing, perhaps illustrated in these two given here:
'This is the grave of Mike O'Day
Who died maintaining his right of way
His right was clear - his will was strong
But he's just as dead as if he'd been wrong.'
And this one written of Frederick Louis, the Prince of Wales, elder son of King George II and father of King George III .
'Here lies Fred - who was alive and is dead
Had it been his father - I had much rather
Had it been his brother - still better than another
Had it been his sister - no one would have missed her
Had it been the whole generation - still better for the nation
But since it's only Fred - who was alive and is dead
here's no more to be said.'
The American writer, Dorothy Parker, suggested these epitaphs for herself:
'This is on me' and 'Excuse my dust'
and a third
'If you can read this,
You are standing too close.'
At Flamborough in Yorkshire there is an epitaph for Mary Brown dated the 26th January, 1823.
'She was! But words are wanting to say what
Think what a wife should be and she was that.'
Next week in Part 3 - Marble Cutter's Advertisement.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Epworth
Wednesday 08 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -3 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: -1 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: South
