Tree Shaped Tombstones - A Very Close Look

Sometimes I snap a picture of an otherwise mundane "Tree Shaped Tombstone" for a specific reason....only to then discover something else, something more interesting.

Here is the long range view.  Carl Wilke has a nice monument, the linked chain representing affiliation with the International Order of Odd Fellows Lodge.  I was fascinated by the horizontal fissure above the chain.  Let's zoom in close....

Notice the darker grey mortar in the crack?  It is evidence of a repair job.  Probably this tombstone broke along the join between the upper and lower segments.  The repair is rather slip shod, no doubt moss and moisture will do their insidious work as the years wear on.  But there is something Odder than the Odd Fellows going on here.......look at the texture of the weathered limestone....in fact, let's look very closely at that.

Fossils!  The little snail shell in mid frame is the most obvious but there are also a variety of little coral like things.

It makes you think.  Here we have a monument created by a man and for the remembrance of one.  The details will erode and vanish, leaving the man unremembered while exposing in the process evidence of life that preceded him by millions of years!