Tree Shaped Tombstone - McKinley Wisconsin

Oh, my.  The tree shaped tombstone in this photo is really the less impressive part...

Welcome to McKinley Wisconsin.  It's just a wide spot in the road really.  But it has a cemetery.  And next to it a church.

As you can see, the church has taken a big hit.  A lightning strike in the summer of 2025 started a fire.

At this point the building had been repurposed into a home, and the family was just barely able to escape unharmed.

Almost a year later there do not appear to be ongoing repair efforts.  

Now, on to that tombstone.  It is unusual in several respects.  For one thing, it is the only one in the cemetery.  My rule of thumb is that when you see one you will almost always see another.  Not here.  And it has some other unusual features.  It is a really, really late example.

As is common, its a husband and wife.  He died in 1918.  She in 1937.  Monuments of this sort were becoming uncommon as the 1920's approached.  Perhaps they were the kind of people who really planned ahead and bought this earlier?

Something else odd here, and this one really bothers me.  The inscription at the bottom is in some language that I can't make out.  I've run what I can see through Google Translate and come up empty.  Of course my policy is that I never scrub at such things, I keep my hands off.  But what is this?   (Note, based on another example from a few miles away I'm thinking it is Norwegian)