Thomas Tedder grave - 2004-11-18 20:17:53
This unique grave is modeled after a tree trunk, from which hangs an anchor (Tedder was a sea captain) and a scroll with his name and pertinent dates. It's the most individualistic grave I've seen yet.
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In contrast, here is a home-made concrete grave, with the family name drawn in with a twig. The grave's pitted surface and little ridges around the letters where the twig traced out the characters make this perhaps the saddest grave I've seen.
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but I bet the Casler survivors were proud of their work. Thanks for sharing these two most wonderful pictures. * * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2004-11-18 23:33:07
You're most welcome, Addiann; thanks for visiting. The Casler grave really moved me. I pictured someone digging out a tombstone-shaped pit in their backyard and pouring in the concrete. I sure did wonder about the backstory that led to this concrete grave. Couldn't find anything on Google, except that some local SE Michigan Caslers served in the Civil War.* * * * * * * * * * * * brett - 2004-11-19 10:35:45
i think the interesting thing about the two graves you photographed, is that they're both made of concrete. There seemed to be a big jump in popularity of concrete (both for tombstones and as building material) during the late 19th century, and it obviously appealed to both rich and poor.
Stony Creek has one of my favorite markers in the county, which is a 'fake grave' for a young man who went west to california in the 1840's, and subsequently died somehow, causing his family in stony creek to erect a headstone for him (although they would never have been able to have his body returned).
If i can find the photo i took of it, I'll post it later.* * * * * * * * * * * *
Laura - 2004-11-19 10:40:19Brett: wow, what fasicnating comments. I'll be darned--you're completely right, the Tedder grave is indeed concrete. I was so taken with the design I didn't even notice that.
I missed seeing the "fake grave" but now I'm practically dying of curiosity of course. May I ask, in what quadrant of the cemetery is it?* * * * * * * * * * * * brett - 2004-11-19 11:47:02
well, i managed to locate the image. I was slightly off on the date, which was 1854. Also, I had forgotten the young man's unusual name:
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oh, and it's in the southwest quadrant, probably only a row or two in from the entrance gate.* * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2004-11-19 11:54:28
Wow. Just wow.
That is just amazing, Brett--thank you *so much* for, um, digging that up. Really beautiful and mesmerizing. I note the incorrect spelling of CA.
It looks like the poem is still to some degree legible, which in my limited experience is somewhat unusual. I have to find this stone & see if I can read the poem. Again, Brett, thank you for giving everyone such a beautiful stone to examine.* * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2004-11-19 11:55:40
p.s. and thank you for the location information: it's on my list, for sure. * * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2004-11-19 12:29:19
I wonder if it's reasonably safe to consider this grave a Gold Rush grave--how cool to think about it in those terms. A real link to the past. Odd to think I could go and touch this stone also touched by the members of his family back then.* * * * * * * * * * * * brett - 2004-11-19 12:34:24
no, I'm pretty sure it's '54' with a very fancy '5' (I don't believe many stony creek residents would have gone to California in '37).
I didn't apparently take any other close-ups that day, so I don't know what the poem says.
As for Cal-a-fornia, maybe they were in fact psychically predicting the current governator's pronunciation. Perhaps the poem is about a barbarian fighting Grace Jones.
Finally, as an aside, i started imagining what it would be like if parents today started naming their kids "Tom DeLay" or "Jim Traficant". * * * * * * * * * * * *
Laura - 2004-11-19 12:47:03(oops, I deleted a comment I'd made about my misreading of "1854" as "1834"--that is what Brett's referring to).
Well, Daniel Webster's poem is on my photo list for sure. I'll try to get a rubbing of it too. Rubbings are turning out to be fun but less legible than I'd thought. Most of those cursive carvings are V-shaped, with the deepest part of the letter coming to a point, and the outlines of the letter at the surface being much wider--the rubbing captures the wider part, resulting in kind of "ballooned-out" looking letters. It's still fun, though.
I bet this event is chronicled somewhere in the old papers. I'll have to go try to dig it up. I need about 13 more lives' worth of time to do all the research I'd like to...
I take it your reference to DeLay is a reference to this Daniel Webster* * * * * * * * * * * * Laura again - 2004-11-19 13:05:49
OK, this is a bit off-topic but just too interesting not to want to show you: geomorphologist Tom Meierding uses tombstones to measure pollution in the past.
"When he was studying cemeteries in mountain ghost towns, he visited a cemetery in Leadville, Colorado, where the old gravestones were in very bad shape. "I thought it was the effects of frost, until I mapped the findings," he said. There were many other towns at the same elevation with no damage, so frost could be eliminated as the cause.
"It turned out," Meierding said, "that at one point in time, Leadville had been the smelter capital of the West, processing gold, silver, and other ores mined during the Gold Rush era." Pollution from the smelting process had accelerated deterioration of the tombstones."* * * * * * * * * * * * Anna - 2004-11-19 17:07:52
I wonder if it was one of Daniel Webster Redner's nephews who is listed as a member of the UM football team in 1901. He's pictured here: http://www.umich.edu/~bhl/athdept/football/fbteam/1901fbt.htm
Handsome devil.* * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2004-11-19 18:25:57
It is jaw-dropping to me to see kind readers making these pretty amazing connections, like Leighton discussing his testpilot grandfather--that is so interesting, Anna, thank you! He is indeed good-looking, as you note. That's a pretty unusual name; I daresay he must have been kin to poor Daniel. Quite interesting.* * * * * * * * * * * * add your comment: