Escape: RIP, just don’t expect to be able to read the inscription…

I’m supposed to be doing more packing and organizing and really most of all going-to-bedding.  But I am trying despite the insanity around me to get the rest of our wonderful trip blogged, so here goes…

One of the fun moments on our trip was walking around a really old cemetary at the Circular Congregational Church in Charleston.

At first we were just walking around noticing that some of the headstones were so old they were pieces.  (Historic pieces.)   (I suppose the singular of that would be “an historic piece…)  (You can see some historic pieces in the bottom of the picture.)

But then we got interested in what the gravestones actually said.

Just in case you can’t read this well enough (or don’t care to try) let me transcribe some of it for you:

Here rests in peace
the mortal part of
Mary, late wife of Josiah Smith
One of the deacons of this church.
Who after happily exemplifying the
Conjugal and Maternal virtues
for upwards of 37 Years
Was suddenly arrested by the hand of Death
to the no small grief of her numerous
Relations and Friends…

 

I am certainly hoping that, should I pass from this life before Russ, he remembers my Conjugal and Maternal virtues on my gravestone!

Some monuments seemed more like resumes more than anything else.

The flatter stones seemed not to have fared as well—the inscriptions were quite weathered.

Here’s something else Russ had better put on my tombstone.  Even though I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean, unless it’s talking about my muscles.  (Which would be a lie, but after I’ve been dead for a while who would know???)

Here’s one last stone—the whole entire thing was covered in writing.  Kind of strange, if you read it.  It makes me wondered how this was considered when it was done.  Was it beautifully nostalgic?  Or still a little creepy and excessive even back then??