Tree Shaped Tombstones - Clark's Mills Wisconsin

Clarks Mills is a little unincorporated village near Manitowoc Wisconsin.  The prominence of the Catholic church and school say something about its history, and this is also reflected in its tidy little cemetery.  It has a number of Tree Shaped Tombstones in varieties more common in Catholic burial grounds.

One clue is the frequency of small crosses in the design.  This one is unusual in that it is of the "two trunks" variant which usually goes with a married couple.  But there is only one name on it.

Also unusual, what I assume is the year of death is on one of the cut off branches.

This tombstone has message plaques on three sides.  I forgot to photograph one of them.  I think this might be the resting place of two nuns, but some of the German is a bit colloquial for my imperfect abilities.  The word "Siska" appears twice and perhaps means Sister?  ( Schwester in conventional Deutsch).  I suppose Siska could be a family name but that's pretty odd for German.

Here's an easier specimen, if only because it is less wordy.  They were serious about the base for this one.

There is something about the crude faces of Jesus on these tombstones that always makes me think of much, much older artwork.  It's the sort of image you'd see in early medieval cathedrals.

A quiet little cemetery near a sleepy little town.  Although doing a bit of research I did run across some exotic excitement in the form of an alligator scare in 1966!  And even more remarkable, it turned out to be true.