Wednesday’s child: Rebecca and Harriet

So far, I have found no photo of this grave marker before the statue was broken. Even so, I cannot look at this weathered marker without hearing the whisper of a small voice: Now I lay me down to sleep.
CHILDREN of
Wm. & Susan
WILCOX.

REBECCA A.
DIED
Oct. 18, 1862
AGED
2Ys. 1Mo. 18D.

HARRIET E.
DIED
Apr. 8 1869
AGED
2 Mos. 7 D




Sandy Corners Cemetery, Franklin County, Ohio

Wednesday’s child: Edna

EDNA
Dau. of Oren & Ella
POPPLETON
DIED
AUG. 4, 1877
AGED 17 D.
-----
Budded on earth
to bloom in Heaven
Stones with bas-relief doves are not uncommon in old cemeteries with 19th century stones, but this life-sized statue of a dead dove was the first I had seen in person. The imagery is striking.
Edna’s parents are buried nearby: Ella Poppleton (b. 1855, d. 1945) and Oren Poppleton (b. 1856, d. 1920).

Cheshire Cemetery, Delaware County, Ohio

Every day is Tombstone Tuesday at Gravestoned

Just a reminder that every day is Tombstone Tuesday here at Gravestoned. Today’s marker is from Oller Cemetery in Delaware County, Ohio: Sarah.

Someday soon I will visit Oller again to try the aluminum foil method to read, or rather attempt to read, the full inscription on Sarah’s marker. Wish me luck!

Nine years of nature

On a recent visit to Sandy Corners Cemetery in Dublin, Ohio, I stopped at the grave markers for the Davis family. There were two weathered obelisks, one for H. Davis (d. 1878) and one for his wife, Sarah (d. 1877).

Between the tall markers was a small, damaged stone that was difficult to read. In fact, I could not even make out the name, but based on the few lines I could read, I understood it to be the marker for a daughter of H. and Sarah. I snapped a picture, hoping to figure out the details of the inscription after transferring the image to my computer.

No such luck.

No matter how much I zoomed or enhanced my photo of Unknown Davis, I could not read the name. On top of that, the line revealing age at death was completely missing. Time for plan B: Search the Internet for another source of the gravestone inscription.

Bingo! Her name was Loria.

I found a photo of the white marble marker, easily read, on Leona Gustafson’s website, a site I had visited many times before. The big chip had been missing from the top of the marker when this photo was taken, but there was little lichen (moss? algae?) on the stone. David Gustafson took the photo in 2001.

Leona and David Gustafson have photographed and transcribed thousands of gravestones in abandoned and inactive cemeteries in and around Franklin County, Ohio, preserving valuable information for generations to come. In a 2002 article in The Columbus Dispatch, Leona said, “Every one of them, eventually, will be gone.”

Take time to explore Leona’s website: http://www.genealogybug.net/Franklin_Cemeteries/. 



Thank you to Leona and David Gustafson for permission to post the 2001 photo of Loria’s marker.

Wednesday’s child: Clara

CLARA

Dau. of G. &

N. LEASURE

Died

Oct. 2, 1860

Aged 1 Y’r

5 mo. 17 d’s.

Look carefully at the bottom of the marker. Before the marker sunk into its foundation, an epitaph was visible! I see Sweet little bud for—do you? I am making a Google-supported guess to finish the verse:

Sweet little bud, for

earth too fair, has gone

to heaven to blossom there.

Clara Leasure, Oller Cemetery, Delaware County, Ohio