Wednesday’s child: Charley McCarty

For years Williamsville Cemetery was hidden from view, its gravel access drive off a busy four-lane road difficult to locate. The only visitors were family, die-hard gravers, and vandals.

Now that the area is being developed, the small cemetery faces a newly built side road and welcomes all visitors. The day I visited, a heavy equipment operator leaned against his equipment trailer just outside the cemetery fence, enjoying the shade as he ate his lunch.

The small marker for Charley McCarty sits on the west end of the cemetery, with family nearby. On top of his marker is a small stone bird’s nest with three tiny carved eggs inside.

CHARLEY
son of
G.W. & L.
McCARTY
DIED
JUNE 1, 1876
AGED
1YR. 1M. 9DS.
Was Charles his given name? Call him Charley. The family did.

Williamsville Cemetery, Delaware County, Ohio

Intermission: Wordle fun

There is a heat advisory today. Maybe not the best afternoon for a graveyard hop. Better to pursue indoor activities—like creating a Wordle!

A what? According to the Wordle home page, “Wordle is a toy for generating ‘word clouds’ from text that you provide.”

Here is my personal surname Wordle, with locations added, just for fun:

I gave the Wordle maker the URL for this blog, and it promptly generated this Wordle:

Don’t let my conservative, gray-toned word clouds fool you. You customize the font, colors, layout. The font I chose for my Wordles is “Powell Antique,” which seems just right for genealogy, history, and such. Of course, since this is a gravestone blog, I favor the color palette “Ghostly.”

Give it a try, but don’t say I didn’t warn you: Wordle can be addicting.

Thank you to Twitter buddy @genwishlist for the surname cloud idea.

A trio of uniquely personal gravestones

Do the Phillips gravestones reveal a family penchant for gravestone carving?

Charles Phillips (1882-1936) and Ellen

Elizabeth Phillips (1855-1919)

Maloney S. Phillips (1826-1896)
Sara Ellen Phillips (1867-1888)

Oller Cemetery, Delaware County, Ohio

The willow and the rose

Among the old stones in Cheshire Cemetery, Delaware County, Ohio, is the double marker for brother and sister, Anson Benton and Orminda Benton, whose births—and early deaths—were separated by years.

ANSON
son of
SAMUEL & MINERVA BENTON
died Nov 27,
1826
aged 7 days.

ORMINDA
daughter of
SAMUEL & MINERVA BENTON
died at Bristol, N.Y.
July 24,
1809
aged 1 year, 5 mo. & 5 days.
Look carefully at the gravestone to see a bit of individuality, most likely based on gender: His side bears an urn and willow; hers, a rose. 

They share an epitaph, a slightly modified version of Epitaph on an Infant by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade,
Death came with friendly care,
The opening buds to Heav’n convey’d,
And bade them blossom there.

The poem, written for a single child, actually ends with the line “And bade it blossom there.”

Wednesday’s child: Garrett triplets

No lambs or doves or sentimental epitaphs. It is a small, simple gravestone:

TRIPLET BOYS OF
A.C. & C.M. GARRETT
AUG. 11. SEPT. 25. 1914

Did the Garret boys have given names? According to a ohiogravestones.org, yes they did. The State of Ohio Death Index backs it up:

Charles Garrett (d. Sep. 25, 1914)
Leeland Garrett (d. Aug. 11, 1914)
William Garrett (d. Sep. 25, 1914)

Groveport Cemetery, Franklin Co., OH