Friday, November 21, 2014

A Young Hunter Remembered

It would be a stretch to include this specimen in my "Tree Shaped Tombstones" category.  Not that it doesn't have a few features in common with them.


The framing of the text in the intertwined branches is nicely done.  And it even has the sickle motif often seen on a short version of the tree tombstones:


There is a bunch of other stuff going on here as well.  The nice deer's head in the upper center of the carving has as its counter point, a hunting rifle.


The text is hard to read but what I can make out tells a sad tale....

???B BROWNING
????? 1894
AGED 13 YEARS
BY HIS FATHER

I have made at least a preliminary search of obituaries in the little town - Rock Falls, Wisconsin - that is near this cemetery.  So far no luck.  Make up your own story I guess.  But I have not shown you everything yet.


Look behind the tombstone.  Young Mr. Browning is not alone.


Opening day of Wisconsin deer hunting season tomorrow at dawn.  Everyone, please be careful out there.

2 comments:

Nona said...

That's the grave of Alexander Browning. The inscription is:
A. H. Browning
died Dec. 11, 1894
aged 83 years
Our Father

Not a young hunter after all, but someone's evidently beloved father.

If you like to see a more legible picture of the grave stone taken in 2007, go to findagrave(dot)com and do a search either for memorial # 20237762 or his name and date of death.

Tacitus said...

Fabulous! I never scrub at tombstones, seems disrespectful. The scythe blade fooled me, sometimes it is a marker for a "life cut short". But of course, sometimes of a harvest in due time.

Thanks!

Tacitus