Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-11-14
SOME QUEER EPITAPHS.

1t is well worth a trip to this town to
spend half day in Its Catholic ceme-
terry. Here may be seen perhaps, the
largest collection of curious headstones
In the country. They are the life-work
of rosy-faced, unctuous little Irish
man, who was not only versed in the
"three Rs but was also gifted with
vein of doggerel and a genius for
carving that. had both been cultivated,
might have made him sculptor-poet.
generation ago people in search of
lapidary solace were attracted to his
shop by the sign:
Sculptured marble here you find.
To suit the fancy of the most refined.
Very probably the sympathetic pro-
prietor, after questioning the mourner
on the circumstances attending the
death of the deceased. promised not
only to write but also to illustrate a
lifting epitaph. What must have been
the delight and surprise of one set of
bereaved ones, as they beheld the image
of the dear departed, dressed in a
claw-hammer coat with buttons as
large as his head, and even the seams
down the back, holding a pole so that
the line fell at an angle of ten degrees,
and uttering the following words:
died fishing as this picture shows,
And left this world with all its woes,
To another region | took my flight,
On co with angels adOring Christ.
The action of former parish priest,
in causing a woman who died while
drunk to be buried in unconsecrated
ground, inspired the following indig-
nant words:
] hope right with God, tho wrong with man.
Left in lone corner here am;
leave all TO God, to him pray
That among His lambs I'll be that day.
Here is a sweeter strain:
Erected by her father, Mccarthy,
The pride and the poesy of Old Gortnomon-
Ough,
She left her father and mother to moan
Forever the loss of our daughter, ochone!
These lines have certainly one ele-
ment of sublimity, namely, obscurity:
Hosanna Lord to the eternal praise,
That father and mother be happy both this
ways.
Mullanney puts the following dis
putatious words into the mouth of
famous Dorman, of Office;
Altho' Yankee have not full right
In my own way to seek my God through
Led not by faction an eternal home
l found in shelter Of the Church of Rome.
In the lines below he records a most
extraordinary case:
Here lies two sisters, both virtuous, fair and
young,
Who died, generally regretted, in childbirth
of son:
They together crossed the ocean,
With mutual love upon the way;
] hope the twain are happy;
Good Christians, for them pray.
What delicate tribute the poet, in
A. 4
to his wife:
Here lies Mag, no brag, both fair and young,
And also Ann, our dear and only child;
If God considered our love and unity,
Some hundred years he'd leave them yet to
me.
And how touching is this epitaph:
She ordered TO be.buried next to Mrs. Mackey.
But the verbal displays on these
stones can not 'hold a candle" to the
designs upon them. Under "Amous'
Dorman's inscription horrible carica-
ture of a bishop, long wasted, short
legged and coarse-featured, is baptiz-
ing a kneeling man, who, were he to
rise, would bear the same proportion
to the divine that the ordinary-sized
man bears to a dwarf. The converts
hat. lying on the ground, must have
fitted over his shoulders In another
place a man, perhaps the deceased, is
present in the nineteenth century
clothes among the OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES,
at the crucifixion. The angels on all
these stones are-we can not sav per-
soniiications of awkwardness- they
are the spirits of it; and all the wall
eyed little girls that accompany their
weeping elders to a conventional
monument wear pantalets. On one
stone may be seen this simple design.
angels, cross, harp of Erin and lamb.
Every lamb on these old stones has "a
body the size of pigs, and head
about the size of a cats. But the
masterpiece-th work in which the
sculptor reached the apex of his genius,
is The Last Supper" This beggars
description. l hope it is not wrong to
say that the apostles look like gnomes,
and that there are feet enough for
lx nj Of than RoofO13 HopDi6