This is another in the Strange Roads series. On occasion I have both an atypical destination and a few minutes of extra time on my journey. Easy enough to hit Googly Maps and look for a cemetery. In the river town of Prescott Wisconsin it is in an out of the way corner of town.
As is usually the case, there are Catholic and non Catholic cemeteries adjacent to one another. Separated by a fence and the Reformation. Oddly the Catholic one did not have any "trees". On the Pine Glen Cemetery side however, we find this:
An elaborate variation on the tree shaped tombstone, with a stack of logs beneath, a gigantic acorn on top, and a variety of curvy branches framing up the main section of the monument.
This marker commemorates the Wiggins family. It has obviously been cleaned in recent years, note the nice condition of the inscription area.
It is a rarely violated rule that in any cemetery with one swell "tree" there will always be at least one more. Indeed....
When you take a closer look it becomes obvious that these are not identical. Ordered from the same catelog, sure, but the Peck family went in for a bit more ornamentation. Note the leaves adjacent to the name inscription, and the rather Catholic suggesting crosses on the sides.
As the Pecks, husband and wife, both died in 1892 I guess they or their kids were inspired by the 1891 Wiggins monument. One assumes that everyone in a small town knew each other, and that there is some story - long forgotten - as to how these very elaborate markers were selected.
