In any case the original post dealt with use of older tombstones in a more modern flood control wall alongside Duncan creek in downtown Chippewa Falls Wisconsin. On my revisit I found some new clues.
I've speculated that the stones came from a company that went out of business, and they were just handy when this project was undertaken. I had read that it was a monument company, and indeed some of these are partially finished tombstones. But I think there are enough plain blocks there that they might have been doing other work as well. In a small town you only have so many "customers" for tombstones in any given year and being able to help trim assorted stores and homes around town would be a sensible business solution.
As to the date of the wall I was fortunate enough to spot this:
Absent a bit of most inappropriate stone robbing I am left to speculate. It looks like a tombstone but other interpretations are possible. If it is a memorial the individual would seem to have a name ending in R (although what's that little _ doing there after it?), and to have died in 1934. The E. is enigmatic. Many local worthies were members of a fraternal lodge called the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, and their notation B.P.O.E. is sometimes seen on tombstones. But shouldn't that be centered rather than off to the right side? Unfortunately the local historical society is not open for in person visits just now and the online archives of the local paper do not cover this year. I expect to have more substantial theories down the road a bit.
And of course there is always this one:
August 16, 1895. Nothing more. So many questions. Did the carver make a mistake? I'd expect you would carve the name first. Did somebody not pay their bill? And if so what was the procedure for this? A finished tombstone would be of no value to the carver nor would its absence be much noted by the deceased! You can lean on the family of course but maybe this was a mean old cuss that nobody liked in real life.
Questions, questions. At least I can more accurately date the age of the wall, which I'm sure was one of many successive efforts to control floods along this unruly creek. It can't be before 1934. Probably it was a Depression era project, possibly a W.P.A. effort? And a business failure in a company that likely needed both funeral and commercial customers to make ends meet would make sense. Time to clean out the warehouse. Hey, you can even toss in that old stone we were using as a doorstop....
4 comments:
Old walls, like graveyards, are always interesting.
Perhaps the 1934 stone was meant as a dedication marker for a new building?
Looking at the photo on my tablet, I'm not sure that "." after the E is really a "." Might be simply an imperfection in the stone.
If the top line really is the entire name, it's likely to be relatively short.
Jeff
An interesting theory. I wonder if the technique was a sort of sand blasting where the polished areas were covered with some kind of tape allowing the remainder to be quickly abraded down a few millimeters. If so, this one might have been poorly done and rejected for that reason. If this was a Reject that would explain its discarding.
TJW
The stone with a lone date, likely a corner stone for a building. Common tactic, our old grade school has one.
Post a Comment