Most Interesting Tombstone Inscription You've Ever Seen?

I know people who have written letters to their loved ones and left them on the graves. I think that's an amazing idea.

Some interesting epitaphs for you:

http://www.2spare.com/item_67246.aspx
http://www.webpanda.com/ponder/epitaphs.htm
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/12796
http://people.howstuffworks.com/11-memorable-epitaphs1.htm

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http://nanoisms.blogspot.com

NaNo projects:
2008 - Når Kråkene Kaller (novel)
Kaninen (working title. Genre or length or plot remain unknown. It´s something about two boys, a haunted house, a rabbit and aliens, I think.)
For Elise (short story)

In Cades Cove, Tennessee: "1795-1864 MURDERED BY NORTH CAROLINA REBELS"

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Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.
--Edward Gibbon

This is from a grave in the middle of Nowhere, New Hampshire. I've always remembered this little poem: witty but chilling.

"Stop and see as you pass by,
so you are now, so once was I,
as I am now so you shall be,
prepare for death and follow me."

My all-time favorite: "We loved him but he died." Seen on a 19th century tombstone in an overgrown cemetery in upstate NY.

And I love the "... Prepare for death and follow me" poem cited above. I've seen that on a few stones, too.

I saw this on a gravestone in Shetland:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joesoap/211863716/in/set-72157594231844098/

'I'm still the Boss'

At Crown Hill in Indianapolis

I found it halirous

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Now is the time to go AWOL

XD I forgot to write down whose it was, but my favorite epitaph from the cemetery near my house:

"Thanks for stopping by--sorry for not getting up."

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http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/epitaphs/

People of various religions leave other things than flowers at graves. Some people bring food, money (real or symbolic), incense, tobacco, booze, stuffed animals, written notes, religious items, or stones.

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I had a soul ... but NaNoWriMo eated it. :(

Breeder of Plot Wolverines

Besides flowers, people leave fruits, smoking sticks, I've seen a half eaten apple... every time I'd go, there's an apple half eaten... ribbons, and for holidays there's the regular decorations for that holiday.

Hope this helps a little bit!

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Make your

One of my favourites is:

Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there, I did not die

Also, I think it was Spike Milligan's tomb that had 'Told you I was sick' as an inscription, though I could be wrong.

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Remember: you are a salmon!
[url=http://tinyurl.com/4f4r9a][img]http://tinyurl.com/3quz5j/.gif[/img][/url]

I've visited a LOT of the cemeteries in London, England, and people leave the most incredble things there. There are lots of greetings cards - from birthdays to wedding anniversaries and Christmas. I've seen whisky, beer, cigarettes, snowglobes, all sorts of toys (left for adults as well as children). Sports memorabilia, especially soccer scarves and flags, are really common, but my favourites are the graves that get decorated for Halloween - just perfect!

There's a Jewish tradition that you leave a small stone on the top of the actual gravestone to show the person's been visited - I rather like that one too.

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Do or do not: there is no try.

There are a couple of good ones in Rhode Island.

"I am watching and waiting for you" used to be on the stone of a person who isn't a vampire and some joker had "This is on me" put on his stone.

It wasn't Spike Mulligan, but I can't quite remember the name on it. It's actually a plaque on a family crypt. You can find it in the historic cemetery in Key West. It's in a beautiful location and the cemetery is wll worth seeing.
***********************************
Writing from the quiet environs of Fourmile Canyon in Boulder--a writer's retreat in it's own right.
NANO 2008--The Ghosts of RIver's Bend

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***********************************
Characters Killed: 1
Family Members killed for inturruptin WiP: 8
Co-Workers Killed for asking "How hard can it be?": 12
Caffiene consumed: 23 cups, 11 cans, 5shots.
NANO 2008--The Ghosts of RIver's Bend

Whenever I go to see my grandparents there are bottles of beer on a grave near them, I've also seen teddy bears on children's graves and we once left green jelly beans on my uncle's grave (they were his favourite).

My favorites of the ones I've seen:

"Awaiting Regeneration"
"Last Good-Bye to All"
"I Ain't Got the Blues No More"

I've seen a lot of graves with framed pictures on them, knick-knacks, a soccer ball on a kid's grave, a fishing pole. An envelope that has for years now been sticking out from behind a plaque in a mausoleum addressed "To: Mommy From: Abby" in a child's scrawling handwriting.

I know a guy who's planning to be buried without a coffin, just so his epitaph can read:
"Here lies what's left of Alan Knox;
In death he thought outside the box."

I frequently leave paper boats at a friend's grave because I promised.

These are all great. Thank-you! So many good ideas to use.

The half-eaten apple is a wonderful detail. The image keeps popping into my head at odd times during the day.

That's beautiful. Thanks for sharing that.

I believe that the middle lines of that poem were inspired after a Roman tradition.

" Sum quod eris; fui quod es.

Translation: "I am what you will be. I was what you are." (used on Roman tombstones)."

* Sum quod eris; fui quod es.
o Translation: "I am what you will be. I was what you are." (used on Roman tombstones).

Wikiquote: Latin Proverbs

~The Muse

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~The Muse

If I were you, I'd pick up a cheap copy of Spoon River Anthology, and pick some from there. See if anyone gets the reference. Of course, I have a big think for inside jokes.

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http://www.sheroescentral.com/dc/user_files/30839.jpg

As a former professional genealogist, I've spent a lot of time in cemeteries. That's a very common one, or some variant.

There are (uncommon) stones with hands pointing down - indicating the deceased is in Hell.

There are also whole books of interesting inscriptions, most of which I can't recall offhand. If you need me to dig them up, PM me. Oh, there is a one of a kind one in Massachusetts; a carving of a man wearing a beard - and the stone reads: "Persecuted for Wearing the Beard"...

The oddest most interesting thing I've ever seen is in a cemetery in my home town: "Mrs. Olive Fisher, who died in a very happy frame of mind... " etc. - the funniest thing about it is that there are, two or three graves apart, two stones with EXACTLY THE SAME inscription. Same name, same date of death, same happy frame of mind. If she did it twice, she MUST have been happy.

BTW, you want to visit a cemetery in the area where your MC works, and figure out its history. You can tell the age of a cemetery (and a section) by the stones. In New England, the rule is, slate until the 1820s or 1830s (there are a few newer slate stones, much smoother and different in appearance from the traditional ones, even if carved in the same shape), marble from then on until the 1920s or so - with a few granite stones, especially obelisks, mixed in. Some marble stones are elaborate sculptures, while many are simple stones. Many small stones, for children, until the 1940s or so. Granite after the 1920s, and polished granite later. Bronze plaques set in the ground began about 1900 or so. Some cemeteries (mostly modern ones) only allow bronze plaques, to make mowing easier. The point is: your MC would know the age of the area she was in from the stones AND the setting would be different in different areas.

"I told you I was sick" is unusual but not limited to one person. There are many odd inscriptions - the other problem is that the type of inscription will vary depending on: the time period of the stone (very much so); the area of the country (also very much so); and whether the cemetery is Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or municipal (very different inscriptions, surnames, AND stone descriptions). If you mix up inscriptions from different regions, there are those of us who would notice... Sorry.

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Wandering Author
The Blind Assassin (2006)
The Hammer of Evil (2007)

If I remember right, some passerby later wrote on this same gravestone:
"To follow you I'll not consent,
Until I know which way you went."

A bit on the light-hearted side :)

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I do not suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.
---
2008: This One

A dear friend of mine died about two years ago now, and we keep a Tupperware container on her grave full of photos, letters, a "guestbook" of sorts, and other little presents we bring to her (once, memorably, a friend left her a bag of marijuana, although I'm not sure it's still in the box).
Other things we've spotted around the cemetery include toys, jewelry, garden gnomes, and-- my favorite-- a short copper pole with a set of wind chimes hanging off it.

Observant Jews are never buried in coffins (except under extreme circumstances where the body parts are not connected etc). Instead they are wrapped in shrouds and laid to rest in the earth. Ashes - to Ashes, Dust - to - Dust literally!

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In fact it is a mourning custom, just as at the end of a funeral each member of the funeral party (in Observant Jewish circles) participates in throwing a shovel full of earth upon the just interned body, so too each person who visits the grave adds a stone, as if the sense of loss and mourning is still fresh just as if now (during their visit) they are still in the process of burying the deceased.

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I actually worked as an administrative assistant at a cemetery for nearly two years, and there was one person in particular that sticks out in my mind as interesting (even though it isn't directly related to a tombstone inscription).

Every year on his wife's birthday and on valentine's day he would write a "letter to the editor" that was addressed to her and was published in the local paper. He also without fail visited her grave daily and brought fresh flowers to her grave weekly, even after she'd been dead for like three years.

I've seen, in addition to flowers, the following items left at graves:

* Those little glass gems that you sometimes see in vases.
* Coins (certain religions and belief systems state that you use them to pay tolls to a guardian at the gates of heaven or other similar place.)
* Balloons
* Notes wrapped in plastic bags or laminated
* Dice
* Bells
* Feathers
* Large shells filled with bird seed, crackers, fruit, etc.
* Rosary Beads
* Pentacles
* Candles

There are more but those are the only ones that I can think of off of the top of my head. (Also the only ones that I saw on my last 'Graveyard' crawl.)

I actually just remembered an interesting inscription/story as well from the Motley Family Cemetery (private one) in Mesquite, TX... They used to have a mansion there but it was donated to the city after a fire and they built a community college on the site, but they kept the cemetery.

It reads

THE FOOT OF
G.C. MOTLEY
BURIED
JUNE 5, 1911

From what I understand, G.C. Motley lost his foot in some sort of accident, and the family buried it rather than dispose of it otherwise... Also in the Motley Cemetery (no picture) is a marker for the "ARM OF JOHN S. MOTLEY" dated to 1894.