Hello, All of You

Today (11/19/12) so far, twenty-six people have visited this blog. That’s probably fairly typical. Which, truth to tell, I find pretty astounding, not the least of which because everyone comes and goes so silently. How would one know that anyone’s been here were it not for the counters? Beats me.

In any event, hello to all of you, you dear folk.

Update of the book of epitaphs from the Oregon Territory, which I mentioned earlier: it’s in proof stages now and should be ready in a month’s time, and it’s name has changed to Hey Darlin’; Epitaphs of the Oregon Territory. It will be available nationally, so you can push your local bookstore to carry it.

Testimony to its power: my wife, who was proofing it, came out of her room in tears. She had to stop proofing for awhile; it was too sad.

Now, not all of the epitaphs are sad, but they’re all good and some are downright sublime. It makes one wonder why they haven’t been collected before. One of my flippant answers to the question, “Why cemeteries?” is that I go for the stories and the pictures. The stories are really these little departure-poems, voices from an ever receding past.

“Hello. I hear you.”

Love Me Do

It was not always thus.

We all know how the past is a foreign country with strange garb and customs. We hardly know our grandparents for their antiquity. We accept change as a constant.

Yet time itself changes through time. The apparent length of a day or a life or a millennium has bent and twisted through the ages to mean different and, perhaps, contradictory things to different peoples. For millions of years, time couldn’t have been more than an awareness of days and seasons, of aging and death. Time existed as a cycle, not a direction. Change itself was cyclical. Yesterday would return as surely as tomorrow would fade.

It was the Dream Time. It was when we shared the Earth with the other animals instead of riding dominion over them. The world had not yet been given to us.

At some point in time, change began happening fast enough to notice. At some point, innovation happened fast enough that one person could recognize its arrival: “Hey, when did you start wearing that style of moccasin?” By the time written history arrives, we can track changes in culture and plot a direction. Time becomes less circular and more helical.

In the graveyards of Oregon, we have a touch over 150 years of time etched into stone. We can wander the rows and see the styles change before our very eyes. If we look at them all, we can see the arc of our culture has diversified and draws its messages for the future from a much deeper well now than in the past.

Epitaphs are necessarily parsed through the context of their era. Who merits a headstone, much less an epitaph, is not evenly distributed through society at any time. Cost limits availability, style, and size of monuments. The handmade, wooden headboard will be swallowed up by the elements long before granite or marble will. Different elements of the culture, differing ethnic and religious groups, different eras, have different ways of approaching memorialization; what is custom to one, might be unheard of to another. How interpersonal relations are handled on tombstones offers us a window onto previous times; we can see the trend towards informality (not to mention secularism) writ bold on the rock faces.

The early tombstones of the Oregon Territory reflect both a more homogeneous populace than today and one that took its inspiration from a narrower range of options. Early (1840s-1910s) epitaphs have a much greater tendency towards standardization, set in formal dialogues reflecting as much the choices of the broader community as those of the interred.

It’s not just that people of earlier times were less inclined to write their own epitaphs rather than borrow them from already written sources than people of today, but rather that they chose their selections from a restricted field and one that probably didn’t reflect their own personal experience so much as the dictates of chapbook collections of sentiments written anonymously for such a purpose. Such chapbooks still exist and are still in use, though the contents have changed. Most funerals homes have them, and they’re readily available on the Net. In such instances, it’s the community which fashions the epitaph versus the individual.

It’s doubtful, for example, that William Miracle’s wife, who I presume arranged for his epitaph in 1905, ever thought, much less wrote:

Oh Love I am so sad and lonely
Here without you upon the earth
That the fairest spot in its realm
Are to me but desert dearth.

“Desert dearth”? Even in 1905 no one said “realm,” but “desert dearth”? Please.

Written for the distaff side, it doesn’t get much better. An 1887 epitaph for G. W. Prosser is slightly less ornate:

My wife, how fondly shall thy memory
Be enshrined within the chambers of my heart;
Thy virtuous worth was only known to me,
And I can feel how sad it is to part.

I’m sure Mr. Prosser loved Mrs. Prosser, but I’m not so sure how often he said, “My dear, you are enshrined within the chambers of my heart.” Maybe he did.

Nor do I think that many people were inclined to say “doth,’ even back then.

Although he sleeps his memory doth live
And cheering comfort to his mourners give.
The stilted nature of those epitaphs, though, was not universal. Ira Goodell’s epitaph from 1894 is shockingly modern.

“…how we would make the kisses fly.”

That leaves one with an entirely different impression of their relationship than does “thy virtuous worth.” I’m not saying the Goodells had more fun than the Prossers, but they might have been more fun to party with.

The early period of epitaphs in the Territory was followed by a period of sterility where epitaphs almost disappeared. Cost was undoubtedly a factor, but equally important was a cultural shift away from recognizing death. The lawn cemetery became de rigueur and the customs of memorial day began to wither; there was no longer a grave to maintain. Gravestones were lost in a sea of uniformity. There was little room for sentiment on small, plain, stone tablets level with the ground.

The modern era, which begins slowly in the 1970s, dumps the conventions of old and strikes out in innumerable directions reflecting a new polyphony of beliefs and eschatologies.

Returning to the theme of romantic epitaphs: the category didn’t exist substantially until the turn of the twenty-first century when they blossomed in a fine mist. Inevitably, wrenched from the dependence on preordained scripture, the new epitaphs vary greatly in sophistication and sensibility. Many, if heartfelt, are mundane. Some, though, transcend the ordinary and reach into the poetic. Often, of course, the velvet words are chosen from an extant work and as often it’s hard to discern the authorship of many epitaphs; but a conscientious collector can find genuine gems hidden in the marble bosque.

They, too, fall into recognizable categories, many of which emphasize the permanence of their life together and how it transcends time and corporality. Eddie Hogan (b. 1939) declares that view in its simplest terms. Speaking to his wife, Debbie (1954-1994), he declares:

My wife til the end of time.

The Woods, Sharon (1948-2005) and Wesley (b. 1946), elaborate on those words:

I am with you always
To the very end of the age

Whereas The Heffners, David and Barbara (1952-2002), frame the same feeling in a metaphor:

Our highway
Will never end.

That sense of bonding drifts through many epitaphs. Esther Knight (1991-2008), while only seventeen, emphatically declares:

We were in this together

But the Pearson’s of Roseburg, Glen (1931-2006) and Geraldine (1933-1994), put a light-hearted and endearing spin on it by simply saying:

wild & crazy kids

Which says oodles about who they were and on what their marriage was based.

A pair of anonymous bridge players—A.C.B.L. Life Masters—in the Lower Boise Cemetery had an equally endearing take on what trumped their relationship:

He led diamonds
She returned hearts

Sometimes it’s recognized that the road to eternity is only interrupted. It’s not sure if it’s Darlene Urban talking in 2007 or if it’s someone talking to Darlene, but her epitaph reads:

I’ll find my way back to you by heart.

On the other hand, there’s a good chance it was a wife who wrote to Richard Banker in 1995:

He arrived with the snow
He left with the wind
someday
we’ll be together again

Often as not, the author is merely trying to say “I loved you” in a meaningful manner, one that resonated between them. I have to think it was Eugene (1909-2001) Petucho speaking to his wife Anne (1908-2002) when it was written on their tombstone:

Eyes so dark and dear

Maybe it was the other way around.

Who is speaking on the Sauerwein’s tombstone, Shirley or James who died in 2005?

I love you to your toes

Likewise, is Lillian (1915-2005) Engel speaking from the grave or is someone speaking to her when her marker says:

Hey Darlin’

And who walked with whom as recorded on Erten Brock’s 2005 stone?

I walked with you once upon a dream

On the other hand, it’s pretty obvious to whom Nathan Hand was speaking when he wrote on his monument:

Searching for Linda
on the Oregon Trail

We don’t know if he ever found her. We hope so.

The pressing question is what will happen to epitaphs in the future? Will they disappear along with cemeteries? Will the dead of the future be relegated to mantlepieces then attics and then left behind in the chaos of a long-distance move? Or will they be scattered in streams, on beaches, off mountain tops, or buried in gardens? How will people say they love each other when there is only the wind left and the faint humming of computers? Will anyone care that there once was poetry?

Dying to Speak: Oregon Territory Epitaphs

The following screen shots are from my current project, Dying to Speak: Oregon Territory Epitaphs. I've only just begun sorting them out and doing research on their origins if I can track anything down. I can't imagine doing this without the Internet. The name and format are subject to change, but I'm happy with the layout so far. If you have any suggestions, now would be a good time to bring them out. Aside from me jumping in the lake, of course.

Update

It just looks as if I’ve been lazy. Maybe a little bit lazy.

I have finished Lone Fir: The Cemetery and am waiting for proof copies to come from the press. Now all I have to do is sell it. Can I interest you in a dozen copies? Oh, good.

Elsewhere, including on Ape Shit, I’ve been ranting, but that’s avoidable, and put a number of new cemeteries on Flickr.

Coming up, though I’m not sure in what form, will be some installments on the next project: organizing the epitaphs. Starting with an initial collection of 1700 epitaphs, I’ve whittled it down to, perhaps, closer to a thousand or twelve-hundred of some merit. I’ve assigned each epitaph to one of eleven categories and am currently breaking down further the category of quotes appearing as epitaphs, which I call “borrowed” epitaphs. Right now I’m tracking down song lyrics which fall into two major groupings: Christian songs or pop ballads, with a certain amount of overlap.

I’m still working out the form of presentation, so it’ll be a while before installment one comes out. Have faith. Below is a sample of a database:

Fried Egger

I’m perhaps two-thirds through doing an inventory of interesting markers at Lone Fir Cemetery, the major pioneer cemetery here in Portland. Yesterday unearthed these two gems. The carving of the drowning man is easily the second most famous carving in the cemetery after the relief carvings of the Stephens. It’s pretty well known.


Fried Egger, on the other hand, was new to me. Hear tell his brother was a poacher.

Last Writes

The following is draft 1, section 1 of an extended piece I'm doing on epitaphs. We've had a publisher sniffing around about publishing Mad as the Mist and Snow, which has prodded this effort. Keep watching. Hopefully, we'll test out more sections in the future.

Getting in the Last Word
It’s your last chance. Your absolutely last chance to say anything to the world. Amazingly, many—perhaps most—chose to ignore it; they say nothing. Not just the people who cremate themselves and get stuck on mantles or dumped into rivers, but many people who opt for cemetery burials are happy enough to settle for names and dates only, please. To be sure, lawn cemeteries and columbaria limit the opportunity for expression, but even folks purchasing uprights are often as not satisfied with “Never forgotten.” Oh yeah? Then how come there are no flowers on your grave, huh? So, thank God for all those folks who take one last chance to get in a piece of advice, a bon mot, or a simple little flippancy.

Epitaphs come in all shapes and sizes dependent upon whim and financial wherewithal. They cover the gamut of human expression. They have changed through time. As in all phases of cemetery adornment, the epitaph has undergone a great expansion in its role as a reflection of the deceased. I haven’t in this initial parsing selected for historical distribution of epitaph styles—I’ll leave that for another time—but even so I ended up with eleven categories; and that’s with leaving the vast majority of the collection undistributed. I have mostly ignored, for example, home-grown poetry and poetic allusions. No “professional” category. No tributes. None, in other words, of the categories which hold the largest number of exhibits.

Of the resulting categories, some I fairly well ignored, but of what was left—the easy pickings, as it were—there were plenty of nuggets. The Bible, needless-to-say, provided a good number of epitaphs. Certainly no other book is in the running. Shakespeare as a lump comes in a measly second place; although, all in all, more people choose non-Biblical quotes than Biblical for their tombstones (42 to 30, in this case), not including six for the Bard.

A few categories should be wiped out or merged, but the big ones stick out like ill-packed suitcases with all manner of wardrobe trailing from their seams. If one surfs the Net in search of epitaph collections, one finds there are, essentially, only two categories out there: celebrities and humor (if humor can contain the bizarre). Rodney Dangerfield’s “There goes the neighborhood” is a classic example of a tombstone covering both. What differentiates people who write amusements on their headstone versus those who offer uplifting advice or tout their glories is well beyond this humble researcher and appears to present some research difficulties. In this glance at the last writes, we’ll cast a broad net.

Indeed, one of the first difficulties is in determining who wrote an epitaph: the deceased or the survivors? In some cases, such as where the erection of the tombstone precedes the death of the future occupants, it’s usually evident that the epitaph is the choice of the pre-deceased (can I say that?). Likewise, monuments erected long after a person’s death are usually inscribed with words of the monument erectors, not the person being glorified. In between are a lot of gray areas. For the most part, though, I think people choose their own epitaphs. At least the ones in this collection; and I suspect this collection would be mimicked across most of the country. I think people like to feel they have at least a little bit of their death under control; that it’s their death and not that of an unknown undertaker or priest. All of us, I think, feel a touch like William Hurt’s mother, Claire Luce (1923-1971, Fort Harney Cemetery) , whose sarcophagus reads: “Don’t coddle me into the grave. I’m/ Going to march into it. I’m a man,/ After all.” We want the memory of dignity.

Whoever writes an epitaph, it remains a way for the deceased to speak from beyond the grave, to maintain contact with the living. Once a sentiment is chiseled into stone, one can have reasonable hopes of it surviving for a couple hundred years, whether it makes sense or not. If you have something to say, this is the time to say it.

A small word of warning:
The epitaph database doesn’t stop at the Oregon border. For that matter, neither does the photographic database, but we won’t get into that. But when I sifted the database for epitaphs fitting the categories of interest, I just took them as they came sans regard for origins, provided they came from the Oregon Territory; I’ve eschewed Texas and Wisconsin. I didn’t think you’d want to miss a side-slapper just because it came from Weiser. Think of it as a nod to the cultural unity of the Territory.

Die Laughing
The line between humor and inexplicability is thin. It’s hard sometimes to tell if one is laughing because an epitaph is funny or because one is wondering, “What the hell?” (Which is precisely what Glen Meyers [1980-1999] of the aforementioned Weiser, Fairview Cemetery, ID, said: “What the hell…?,” which he preceded with “Where the sidewalk ends…/ True life begins.” Mr. Meyers was fond of ellispses.) Humor can be intentional—“Gone for the bait” (Mildred Long, 1931-1993, Cliffside Cemetery); inadvertent—“Stan Shattuck was/ hung by mistake” (IOOF Cemetery, Coburg); or ambiguous—“They said she was too different/ and she wrote too many tunes” (Alice Spear, 1923-1989, Coos River Cemetery). It can be gentle—“Raised four beautiful daughters/ with only one bathroom and/ still there was love” (Theodore, 1931-2008, & Nedine, 1932-1997, Barnhouse, Mitchell Cemetery); or irreverent—“I’m going to miss me” (Porter Payne, 1921-2005, Union Cemetery, Union).

In some cases it takes two to make a joke. Couples coordinate their epitaphs. Herman (d. 1986) and Agnes (d. 1992) Baxter, buried in Mt. Calvary Catholic Cemetery, joined their thoughts in death:

His: “On the Highway to heaven”
Hers: “Drive like hell and you’ll get there.”

The Lehmans of Havurah Shalom, Seymour (d. 1990) and Edith (d. 1994) supplied their own couplet:

His: “You’re on your own”
Hers: “Not any more”

Sometimes funny borders on patronizing. What are we to make of Mary Ogden (1920-2000, Odd Fellows Cemetery, Dayton) who leaves us with “It’s your mother”? Don’t we feel she’s still standing over us watching our every move? Is our curfew still in force? Surely she’s friends with the anonymous person in Coles Valley Cemetery, who pontificates, “Blessed are those who clean up.” Avoid their coffee klatches on Monday mornings. In such cases, the epitaph slumps towards the kvetch. Consider the lament of Edith Porter (d. 2000, Kesser Israel Cemetery): “I have three wonderful sons, It’s too bad you couldn’t keep me a little longer.” Guilt from the beyond. Or the more general observation from Gertie Bunnel (1912-1983, Estacada IOOF Cemetery): “Who should live so long”? Or the anonymous grumble from Lone Fir, Portland, “This wasn’t in my schedule book,” which isn’t dissimilar from Jan Peckam’s (1946-1999, Union Cemetery, Cedar Mills) irritation: “It’s always something.” How about the light-weight puffery of Patricia (1928-2003, Lone Oak Cemetery, Stayton): “I’d rather be shopping at Nordstoms”? There are two other “I’d rather be shopping[s],”—no Nordstoms—in the database. Tombstones mentioning corporations are uncommon but not unheard of. Robin Boon (1913-2004, Aumsville Cemetery) brings us another example: “With the Lord, enjoying a good cup of Yuban.” Does Yuban know they have this free advertising? And is Robin so sure she’s drinking it with the Lord? There may be more hot water elsewhere.

One of the more entertaining and quizzical “corporate” epitaphs doesn’t even mention the company or product. All it gives us is the first line of its advertising jingle, one that has already disappeared from the media world long ago. Eino Kangas (1932-1994, Union Cemetery, Union) keeps Alka-Seltzer alive with:

Plop plop
fizz fizz
Oh what a relief it is

Advice doesn’t necessarily come in the form of a kvetch. The Dohrns of Ocean View Cemetery Richard (1940-205) and Colleen (b. 1941) urge us that “Life is uncertain, eat dessert first”; and Mathew Beecher (1952-2001, Tualatin Plains Presbyterian Church Cemetery) quotes Yogi Berra, who opined, “Always go to other people’s funerals. Otherwise they/ won’t go to yours.”

Epitaphs are, of course, as much a reflection of popular culture as anything else. Just because one is going to be dead forever doesn’t mean their sentiments can’t be topical. Arguably, the currently most popular epitaph flippancy, “I told you I was sick,” can be found in our locale on Gloria Martin’s (1926-2002) grave in Robert Bird Cemetery. Indeed, the catch phrase is a popular resource for epitaphs. Charlo (love that name) Dick (1953-2006, Brainard Cemetery) uses a line I’ve seen attributed to an atheist, although I wouldn’t go that far: “All dressed up and no place to go.” Dawn Vocé (1954-2004, Stearns Cemetery) leaves us with the amusing but ambiguous “You put your right foot in”; while Kristie Pergin (1976-1992, Woodville Cemetery) assures us that “The phone must be for you.” What do all these people mean? If you want ambiguous, ponder Barbara Lockwood (1944-2007, Joseph Cemetery): “Barbara stopped here.” Timothy Wilke (1973-2004, Finley-Sunset Hills Cemetery) summed it up best: “Don’t cry Mom/ I’m fine/ It’s only money.” And in case you think you escaped, Arthur Conrad (1947-198, Mountain View Cemetery, View, WA) leaves us with a cheery, “See you soon, maybe tomorrow…”

Patriotism is rarely amusing, but loyalties can put a smile on ones face and they certainly speak to regionalism. David Williams (b. 1922, Phillips Cemetery) may be buried in Portland exurbia, but his heart remains “For God, Country, and Old Wazzu”; Wazzu being the affectionate handle for Washington State University. Other epitaphs evoke the spirit of place indirectly. The epitaph for Claude (b. 1922) and Frances (1923-1998) Friend in Scottsburg Cemetery could have come from anywhere, but its sentiment is surely rural and even forested: “Tried to leave the woodpile a little higher than we found it.” Trees come into play in the epitaph for Jim Everts (1940-1999, Aumsville Cemetery), whose epitaph, “Tree hugger/ ‘left town’ 1999,” implies a conservationist bent. And this anonymous epitaph from Long Creek Cemetery which covers place, profession, and family

Here lies a town girl who became
a ranchers [sic] wife and right hand
A passionate mother. A lover of
family
A promoter of womens [sic] education
and a shopper
Knew I would be asked
Yes Honey I will get the gate

I’d be remiss if I finished this section without mentioning another anonymous soul, this time from Condon Cemetery who moved right into the denial stage: “Do not disturb/ Taking a nap”; unlike the realist Fred Barnes (1913-1993, Ridgefield [WA] Cemetery) who admitted:

I have made many trades in my life,
But I think I went in the hole on this one.

Yet if one wanted regionalism, ambiguity, poetic allusions, and humor all in one package, one could do worse than visit Edward Nielsen (1961-1997, Bay Center Cemetery, WA) whose epitaph reads, “On the edge of passing days”; yet continues on the back of the stone to read:

I rather thought Paradise would be like a library

Times Arrow
Decendant [sic] of Chief Huckswelt
Weelapa Tribe of the Chinook’s [sic]

Death will always come out of season