Cottonwood report. [volume] (Cottonwood, Idaho) 1893-1901, 1895-10-04
TALES OF THE TOMB
Quaint Sentiments Carved in the
Cold White Marble.
UNIQUE, GRAVE AND GAY
Hope and Fear, Pleasure and Pain, Wit
and Wisdom Are perpetuated
Together.

Graveyard literature Is nothing If not |
unique.
The wanderer through the narrow
streets of the city of the dead is ever
confronted with startling conglomer-
alton of sentiment chiseled in marble. |
These epitaphs' are, for the most part,
egregiously bad. They may have been
written according to Shakespeare's be-
lief: after death you had better have
bad epitaph than i'll report while you
live"
However 1t be, there they are, cpl
taphs and epitaphs, the sublime and
the ridiculous, the grave and the gay.
In proximity to the craven prayer of
a saint is the last witticism of jester
or a poetical effusion not pardonable
even on a white slab. The observer is
in turn instructed, saddened or amused
mostly amused.
The epitapher is, indeed, fearfully and
wonderfully made.
A remarkable inscription may be
found in quaint, old-fashioned ceme-
terry in Kentucky. AS the story goes,
an old maid lacking in the bewitching
| beauty attributed to the fair sex of the
blue grass region, lived heart whole
! and fancy free her allotted three score
| and ten. Her solace, as given each
| week in prayer meeting, was that when
this life OF pain and disappointment
was at an end she hoped, during all
eternity to peacefully rest on the breast
| of Abraham. The epitaphist thought
| to engrave her hearts desire after this
| interesting fashion:
Here the remains of Mary Ann rest,
She has gone to slumber on Abraham's
breast.
IT'S very fine for Mary Ann,
But rather rough on Abraham.
In the cemetery near Lakewood, N. j..
the winter esort of the Clevelands, the
Goulds, and the Vanderbilts, may be
found these suggestive lines:
My painful sore long time I bore
Physicians were in vain;
Till God was pleased to give me rest
And free me from my pain.
Farewell, my husband and children dear
1 am not dead, but sleeping here.
AS 1 am now soon you must be:
Prepare for death and follow me.
The proverbial belief that many
woman does not have her "say'' in thi
world embellishes another tombstone a
Lakewood:
!, | Death did to me short warning give,
Therefore be careful how you live
I My weeping friends I left behind;
I l had no time to speak my mind.
California's contribution to this sym
postum of peculiar epitaphs bespeak
much for the epitaphic geniuses of tn
land of fruit and flowers. A villag
e called Lone Mountain is particular
l novel in monumental effusions. Thi
! one sounds like a conundrum:
u His body lies in the deep
Till Gabriel's trump shall sound,
e Yet God will raise it up
d With ours beneath the ground.
e Another inscription is never quoted l
: grammars:
. Him shall never come back to me,
Il But us shall surely go to he.
. A stone "erected by his wife" is ratf
( er doubtfully inscribed:
:, He left this world of care and strife
To lead above happier life.
:. A Flowing husband" of the sam
neighborhood had craven this enig
!, NAUTICAL memorial over the grave of hi
:, wife:
@ The Lord gave and the Lord hath take
J. away.
: Blessed be the name of the Lord.
e A descriptive bit of verse may b
n found in the same cemetery:
d Her blooming cheeks were no defense
n Against the scarlet fever;
Il In five days time she was cut down
- To be with Christ forever.
ID An oddly is the subjoined sentimen
e carved on the tombstone of a Sa
II Franciscan:
Blessed are the homesick
v For they shall get home.
Il San Diego, Cal, furnishes reminde
a of the wild and illiterate days of y
lr west:
'e This year Is saked to the mema@XE <
l. William Henry Shraken, who CAM 70 b
lie deth being shot with Colts reIc[yers
e. one of the old kind, brass mov1<ed. ar
# of such is the Kingdom of Hs&een.
y This effusive stanza ma be found Z
De Hillsboro, N. Y:
lie Sleep on, sleep on, my u
m Sleep on, my love, for yot1 are my turf
"a dove,
IT. IT. HeaI II, Il !s3s "a and earth
- hen You my friends, are passing by,
4 And this INFORMS you where l lie.
zzssn6Iaber you ere long must sayfkn
Like me mansion In the grave