I haven't visited the Spring Hill Cemetery in a while, so I went up there this morning. I've taken a lot of pictures there, so today I went for an aimless ramble and waited for something to catch my eye. And what did grab my attention were two graves for infants and an excellent example of Art Deco carving. The infant graves were similar in shape but different in carving, and that leaves me to believe that a granite cube topped with a lamb was the area standard for infant deaths. The gravestone for Alonza, Maudie, and Jessie, children of George and Emma Wallace is considerably older than that of C. Gregory Ott, which is dated 1951. The Wallace stone is considerably older, given the wear and the style of lettering; plus the only references to a George and Emma Wallace I could find in the public record pointed to the 1890s, which fits with the lettering style. But the similarity of the style of the stones themselves suggests that this was a standard template for children's graves. And I chose George W. Cramer's stone because of the Art Deco design and lettering style; I'm such a sucker for Art Deco!
© 2017 by A. Roy Hilbinger
The possibilities of so many stories about family when gazing at these stones...especially impressed by the loss of three children in one family....don't know how anybody gets through that....your posts and photographs are marvelous no matter what the subject!
ReplyDeleteBarbara, infant death was all too common in earlier times. My researches in gravestone carving in the US go all the way back to the 1600s, mostly because I started this love of old carving back when I still lived in Newport, RI, which was settled in 1638. The Common Burying Ground is full of infant graves, and even multiple ones. See my post on carver John Bull - http://roys-world.blogspot.com/2010/03/ghosts-of-newport-past-john-bull.html - and note the special stone for the 6 Langley children.
DeleteI've always been fascinated with old cemeteries and gravestones. There's a church in the town where I grew up that has a cemetery dating back to the 1700s, and when I was an adolescent, I spent a lot of time there studying old monuments.
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