Weekly THIS AND THAT for May 18, 2008: Some Fascinating Things on Old Tombstones!

This and That:
Some Fascinating Things on Old Tombstones!


Often when time permits, I take a few moments walking from the gravesite to my car to pause and read grave markers and say a prayer for the person who lies there. The following are some actual and rather humorous examples given to me by a friend.

Fondly,
Father Nicholas

Harry Edsel Smith of Albany, New York:
Born 1903 – Died 1942
Looked up the elevator shaft to see if the car was on the way down. It was.

In a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery:
Here lies an Atheist, all dressed up and no place to go.

East Dalhousie Cemetery, Nova Scotia:
Here lies Ezekial Aikle, Age 102.
Only the Good Die Young.

In a London, England cemetery:
Dec. 8,1767
Here lies Ann Mann,
Who lived an old maid, but died an old Mann.

In a Ribbesford, England, cemetery:
Anna Wallace
The children of Israel wanted bread,
And the Lord sent them manna.
Clark Wallace wanted a wife,
And the Devil sent him Anna.

In a Ruidoso, New Mexico, cemetery:
Here lies Johnny Yeast… Pardon me for not rising.

In a Uniontown, Pennsylvania, cemetery:
Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake.
Stepped on the gas instead of the brake.

In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery:
Here lays the Kid.
We planted him raw.
He was quick on the trigger
But slow on the draw.
A lawyer’s epitaph in England:
Sir John Strange.
Here lies an honest lawyer,
and that is Strange.

John Penny’s epitaph in the Wimborne, England, cemetery:
Reader, if cash thou art in want of any,
Dig 6 feet deep and thou wilt find a Penny.

In a cemetery in Hartscombe, England:
On the 22nd of June, Jonathan Fiddle went out of tune.

Anna Hopewells’s grave in Enosburg Falls, Vermont:
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.

On a grave from the 1880s in Nantucket, Massachusetts:
Under the sod and under the trees,
Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.
He is not here, there’s only the pod.
Pease shelled out and went to God.

In a cemetery in England:
Remember man, as you walk by,
As you are now, so once was I
As I am now, so shall you be.
Remember this and follow me.

To which someone replied by writing on the tombstone:
To follow you I’ll not consent.
Until I know which way you went.

And finally, on a grave in tombstone, Arizona:
Here lies Lester Moore
Shot to death by a .44
No Les, No more