January 4, 2009

THE GRAVEYARD RABBIT
BY TERRY THORNTON
A Monthly - Weekend With Shades - Column

The carpenter's rule "Measure twice; cut once" is a good practice to follow. But what about a stone mason --- a craftsman whose duty is to engrave names and dates on a grave marker for all the world to see for all time? His responsibility and reputation are even more in jeopardy because most people who look at his work carefully will know immediately if he has made even the smallest mistake.

Once a name or a date is engraved onto a stone it is permanent --- or is it? Can mistakes be corrected? And what about adding new information to an existing grave marker?

Short of throwing away the stone and starting all over, some stone masons attempt to make corrections if the following photographs of grave markers are any indication. Making corrections on stone is not an easy thing to do nor is it a good solution in most cases.

Adding information to a stone is easier than correcting mistakes but often is poorly done as is shown in the examples below. And finally, below is pictured a marker with enough confusion on it to confound us all.

STRIKE-OVERS ON STONE

Example One of a strike-over on stone. Is this individual's birthday the 25th or the 26th? The strike- over carving makes it difficult to determine.

Example Two of a strike-over on stone. The birth year of this individual is either 1897 or 1898 -- it is impossible to tell by reading the stone.

Example Three of a strike-over on stone. The birth year is either 1914 or 1916 on this marker.

Example Four is of the most egregious strike-over I've found on a modern grave marker. I made two trips to the cemetery trying to figure out this stone; four other individuals also volunteered to help determine what year the stone had carved upon it. But the death year is still a mystery. Here are two photographs of the stone --- a "normal" view and a "close up."

ADDING INFORMATION TO A STONE

Added dates are often sometimes so poorly done that reading them is difficult. Here are three examples --- a "normal" view and a "close up" of each of the added dates. All of the information is readable but difficult. Two of these were so dimly incised that I completely missed the information in the cemetery and only discovered the dates by doing a photo-enlargement on my computer screen. Added dates should be as easily read as the original carving on the stone. A competent monument worker hired to update a stone should not leave behind in the cemetery such poor engraving on a grave marker.

INCORRECT INFORMATION ON A STONE

The above photographs represent mistakes of numerals gone bad or of added dates poorly engraved. Below is a photograph of the most perplexing stone I've encountered in my home cemetery. The more I study it, the more confused the information becomes.

This simple stone purports to be for "William Stockton died 1832 and his wife Polly Morrow died 1876, at rest." Mr. Stockton was one of the pioneer settlers of the Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi. All of the records state he died in 1833. Mr. Stockton was married to Sarah Marrs. Nobody knows who Polly Morrow was.

A recently discovered newspaper clipping indicates that the Stockton stone was "unveiled" about 1932 by a grandson of Mr. Stockton --- a grandson of some claim as a historian --- and that the unveiling was to mark the 100th anniversary of Mr. Stockton's death. Around that date the grandson had at least two "unveilings" of grave markers in Monroe County which presumably he had ordered for other of his relatives to mark the 100th anniversary of their death. Perhaps the other stones he unveiled that day are more accurate than this one.

Sometimes the simple solution to correcting a stone with mistakes is to replace it with a stone that is correctly done.

Some of my regular readers will remember that the "pre-need" stone my wife and I ordered to mark our future burial spot was installed backwards by the monument company. When I notified the company, it sent workers to come and re-set the stone by turning it around into the proper direction. Had the stone been installed on a "need" basis (meaning after Sweetie and I were dead), would anyone have noticed it was backwards except some taphophile in the future doing graveyard rabbit inventories? Did the withholding of the final one-third of the cost of the stone factor into the company's willingness to "do it right"? Probably.

Correcting mistakes made by memorial stone masons is not advised in most cases as strike-overs are generally not a good solution. If the mistake was made clearly by the monument company, it should replace the stone. If the mistake was made by the individual who ordered the stone by giving "bad" information, then the "problem" is the responsibility of that individual. Replacing a stone is expensive --- and sometimes the solution is to order a very small inexpensive stone with the correct information engraved on it and install it close to the original one.

When a stone is ordered, a prayer should be offered to the patron saint of stone carvers, Saint Clement of Rome, that the spelling and the dates provided to the monument company are correct and that the memorial grave marker carver will be accurate in transcribing those letters and numbers to engravings in stone.

AMEN!