Tree Shaped Tomb Stones at Our Lady of Lourdes

Still on that detour road north of Rice Lake Wisconsin!

I'd seen signs pointing to Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church on earlier jaunts, so I figured a short side trip was in order.  It is a very pretty pink stone building.

This is in a tiny little hamlet called Dobie, which grew out of an earlier French Canadian enclave. And as is common in this part of the state, there were a few "Tree Shaped Tombstones".

This is the "Stack of Logs" variant that seems to be common in the area.  The Christ on the cross addition on top is almost exclusive to Catholic settings.

Sometimes the crucifix is the only tree element in the design.  Here's two of them.  I assume they were ordered from the same catalog.

Because I already have enough strange interests I usually ignore any tombstones without bark and branches.  But here I ran across a couple that seem worthy of an off topic mention...

This one must date to that earlier French community.  The "Here Lies the Body of" in French is very unusual to this part of the world.  And what's with that logo in the circle?  It looks like tweezers and beans!

Veteran's graves always merit a moment of contemplation and respect.  This soldier of the Great War almost made it to the November 11th Armistice.  So close....

Every tombstone tells the story of a life.  In this case....

C.A.C. stands for Coastal Artillery Corps.  And while some of these guys were deployed to Europe to man the larger guns, Private Kearney died in Seattle.  Of influenza.

I guess we've mostly forgotten Covid-19 and the memories it stirred of the Spanish flu pandemic that landed a follow up punch to civilization just as the guns went silent.