German Tombstones

Last Sunday afternoon I spent time at the church cemetery again, trying to copy down some of the German verses from the older gravestones. Here's how the church appears when one is standing amongst the tombstones:

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Another view of the steeple:

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Here are some of the German verses. These did not have biblical zip codes attached, so I'm not sure if they are actually Bible verses or not.

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RUHE SANFT IN FRIEDEN

VIEL ZU FRUH VON

UNS CASCHIEDEN

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Selig sind die Toten die im Herrn sterben von nun an.

Ja der Geist spricht, dass sie ruhen von ihrer Arbeit;

denn ihre Werke folgen innen nach.

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Ich bin der bosen Welt enttlogen, in welcher ihr euch noch belr ubt, mich hat der Herr zu sich gezogen der mich viel mehr als ihr, geliebt: ich schaue Jesu Angesicht, daran gedenkt und weinet nicht.

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NUN HAB 'ICH UBER WUNDEN KREUZ, LEIDEN, ANGST UN NOTH, DURCH SEIN' HEILIG FUNF WUNDEN BIN ICH VERSOHNT MIT GOTT.

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Mie selig die Ruhe bei

Jesu im Licht

Tod. Sunde und Schmerzen,

die Kennt man dort nicht

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HIER RUH UND

SCHLAF ICH GANZ

IN FRIEDEN DEN

DU HERR HIELFST

MIR DAS ICH

SICHER WOHNE

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ICH HABE LUST

ABZUSCHEIDEN UND BEI

CHRISTO ZU SEIN

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Du ruhest nun in stillen Frieden

Den unfer Herz im Tod noch liebt

Ach biel zu fruh von uns geschieden

hat tief die Crennung uns betrubt

Doch lag es in des Hochsten, Plan

was Gott tut das ift wohlgetan.

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There were other German verses which had Bible zip codes such as: I Mose, Giob, Apost., Offenb., Jes. I could figure out that I Mose is Genesis, and Giob is Job, but the other three I've not taken time to work on, or even Google, yet. So have at it, Googlers! Or, Babelfishers!

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May God bless you with a pleasant October Sunday!! Enjoy the changing of the seasons!!

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[Update after church service this morning: Guess what!! We had a substitute pastor today.......a German fellow who speaks with a delightful German brogue. He gave me permission to email the German verses to him and he will attempt to translate them!]

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Cemetery Chrysalis

My apologies for being weird and spending time amongst tombstones, but I'm working on documenting our church's cemetery info. Earlier this summer, the deacons of our church issued a call for a volunteer or two to take on this cemetery task. The past several Sunday afternoons, I"ve spent a couple hours there, making a chart of the gravestone rows, and trying to write down and photograph the engravings. Many of the really old stones are almost impossible to read anymore. Many include long verses in German. Geboren means "born" and Gestorben means "died". I think Hier ruht in Gott means "asleep in God", or something like that. Maybe someone can tell me what the second half of this verse means (I think the first part means "Christ is my Love"): Christus ist mein Leben; Sterben ist mein Gewinn. (Maybe the second part means, "Heaven is my Home".) [After publishing, I found the German-English dictionary website linked to at the end of this post. Sterben means "death", and Gewinn means "profit; prize", the verse coming from Philippians 1:21.]

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Anyhow.........can you tell what's hanging on this tombstone? Oh, that's right.........the title of this blogpost gave it away!!

Its an abandoned Monarch butterfly chrysalis----hanging on the stone of a 39-year-old woman named Christine who died in February of 1902, one day after giving birth to a son, Henry, who died the same day he was born. He's buried here, too; a story-teller could probably weave a moving tale from the few facts on and around this tombstone. (Just think of ALL the stories buried in ALL the cemeteries ALL over the world!) I had our church's history book with me, and looked up the baptism of little Henry.......yes, it is recorded that he was born, baptized, and died, all on the same day. Baptism-----surely an extra special comfort in those days when birthing deaths were so common. Also, I complain about Lutherans sometimes, but they certainly do keep meticulous records of events like baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and burials-----useful info for genealogical research.

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I had blogged a few weeks ago about a chrysalis in our road ditch, and how it appeared to have tiny gold metallic beading around it. The beading is still visible on this empty one, too. Amazing, too, how it could stay attached to the tombstone, even in windy weather conditions. ***
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This tends to be a very peaceful spot to spend time in........there's just me, the warm sunshine, silent stones, rustling cornstalks, chirping crickets, and killdeer and finches flitting by with a rapid-song greeting. In the next photo, my chair is sitting between two rows of childrens' stones. That first row along the cornfield contains adult graves.......then there's the two rows of children, then another adult row, and another children's row. There's alot of children, unfortunately, in these rows dating from the 1880's onward to the early 1900's. Common name choices of the era and culture include Friedrich, Johann, Heinrich, Wilhelm, Maria, Dorothea, Caroline.

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So, you may or may not wonder..........do I remain stoically unaffected by my sojourn amongst the tombstones? Well-----being not made of granite or marble-----I bawled all the way home this time (which is only five miles)........then was OK again. If my family noticed my red eyes, I could always easily mislead them by saying the pollen count must be high, causing my hayfever to act up!

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P.S. - To see some fantastic photos of a Monarch butterfly chrysalis,

go to this recent post on Chronicles of a Country Girl blog!!

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[P.S. again - After publishing this post, I found a link to a German-English dictionary site from which to find translations of the German words!]

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In Our House

Beneath these three gravestones lined up in a row in the cemetery near our farm are three children of the Dickey family. Each child died at two years of age, probably of diptheria, Orton in 1871, Arthur in 1876, and Leota in 1879. The Dickey family was one of the early owners of our farm; I have seen their name on the farm deed. Albert and Phebe Dickey were the parents of these three; I have no idea if any of their children lived to adulthood, but there is no one by that name living in our area today.
What suddenly dawned on me with startled clarity, a week ago on Sunday afternoon, as I was gazing at these stones, was that these children would have lived and died right in the house we live in!

When we remodeled a couple years ago, and were tearing out walls, it was easy to tell which part of the house is the oldest. There was old, dark, hand-sawed wood there with square nails in it. We think that oldest portion of the house was built in the 1860's. A two-story addition was constructed in 1897, and we know that for sure because the date "July 11, 1897", was penciled in on the boards beneath the old wood siding we were removing. (Get this....... July 11 is Husband's birthday!)

Here is the inscription on Albert Dickey's tombstone. He died November 26, 1893. (Click picture to see it larger.)

And, below is the friendly cat that followed me around in the cemetery that sunny afternoon, posing contentedly for a portrait here and there.

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Wow, can very many of us imagine living in a time when losing children like that was a common occurrence?! There were no antibiotics and vaccines back then. Just think of it.

I'm not saying the following was anything more than my imagination, but on Monday morning, the day after I took these photos, I awakened very early to the feeling that someone was gently slapping my feet together. It wasn't Husband; he was still sawing logs. My next thought was that for some odd reason my nineteen-year-old daughter was trying to quietly wake me up to tell me something, that she'd had a dream or didn't feel good, but when I finally lifted my head to look, NO ONE was there. I fell back asleep, and it happened again, and then again, for a total of three times. Like I said, it felt exactly like someone was using their hands to gently slap my feet together. Like something a little kid would do. And no, I've never experienced that sensation before,........ever.

I know that as a Christian I'm not supposed to believe that spirits could hang around a place, but I can't entirely rule out that its not possible. I don't use the word "ghost", for I don't care for the frightfulness that usually gets associated with the word. It wouldn't bother me a bit if spirit remnants of those little toddlers who died here tried to get my attention. I can't say there's been any other odd things happen over the years, so maybe this incident was simply my imagination at work after realizing those children had died here years ago. Although, my daughter has told me ever since she was little that she feels a presence in her room at night......up in a corner near the ceiling; I've always assured her its probably an angel.

I've also read that its possible that the energy of strong emotions can hang around in the place where something traumatic happened. I would think the illnesses and deaths of several children would have produced plenty of emotional reaction in the parents and other loved ones.

Who knows??!! We think we know so much, but I wonder if we really do.

I hope I haven't weirded you out for the day.......stories like this don't bother me, but they might bother some people, and I apologize if it bothers any of you reading this.

Enjoy this Memorial Day! Maybe you're celebrating the start of summer with a family picnic or a day trip or some other relaxing activity. Have a great time and be safe!

More Cemetery Sights

I'm sure you're just dying to see more cemetery sights! I can't believe I ended
this recent post by stating that the statues my mom and I saw in the Waterloo cemetery "added a sense of comfort and serenity". I hadn't looked at the photos from that day yet! The statue figures add something, but what exactly that something is, is the question!!

This angel statue is probably six feet tall and situated atop an already towering tombstone. The face and wings are frightfully blotchy, and in an attempt to cheer up her/his appearance, I added a happy color to the background. Obviously, that didn't help much!

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In my imagination, this stone lady below seems to be saying: "Hey, there.....please, stop for a moment......I have a question about something in this book!" She, too, was over six feet in height and on top of a tall gravestone engraved with a big "E". What do YOU think she's trying to say??

This cemetery surely must be one of the oldest ones in Waterloo. Near the front gate were several graves of the Hanna family, who I think were some of the first white settlers in this area. That would have been in the 1830's & '40's, and at that time Waterloo was known as "Prairie Rapids", and neighboring Cedar Falls was called "Sturgis Falls". This cemetery is sprawled across a sloping rise above the Cedar River. It seems cemeteries often end up on hills. Maybe Native Americans used this area, too, for encampments.......or burials.

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There's another cemetery I had thought of visiting that day with my mom, but we ran out of time. It is north of Cedar Falls, and buried there, I believe, is the author Bess Streeter Aldrich. She wrote about the early settlers of this area of Iowa. Two of her books are A Lantern In Her Hand and A Song Of Years. I read the first one back when I was in high school, and recall bawling my eyes out at the end. Abbie Deal's deceased husband, Will, had returned in spirit to escort her from this world.......it is a very moving scene:

She turned to the doorway. "It seems a little dark. You know, Will, I think we will need a lantern. I've always kept the lantern.....". Her voice trailed off into nothing. For Will was still smiling at her, questioningly, quizzically,-----but with something infinitely more tender,-------something protecting, enveloping. Slowly it came to her. Hesitatingly, she put her hand up to her throat. "Will......you don't mean it!......No THAT.......not DEATH......so EASY? That it's nothing more than THIS.......? Why, WILL!"

Abbie Deal moved lightly, quickly, over to her husband, slipped her hand into his and went with him out of the old house, past the Lombardy poplars, through the deepening prairie twilight,------into the shadows.

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"Because the road was steep and long,

And through a dark and lonely land,

God set upon my lips a song

And put a lantern in my hand."

---------Joyce Kilmer

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Sorry.....my eyes are all watery now...... again. And, here's a poem mom and I saw inscribed on a gravestone that was flat on the ground in the Waterloo cemetery (click on it to see it larger):

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Bess Streeter Aldrich's book A Song Of Years contains the fictionalized account of a true story that happened in the life of the great-grandfather of a good friend of mine. The great-grandfather, as a young man, had come to this area, on foot, to acquire land to homestead on, and found a nice section that he wanted. Two land speculators driving a buggy wanted that piece of land, too. It would become the property of whoever could get back to the land office in Dubuque first (around 100 miles to the east). Remember, my friend's great-grandfather was travelling ON FOOT, and the other two men had a horse and buggy. Guess who got there first.........yup, that's right.......my friend's great-grandfather! Its a well-known story around here. My friend's family still owns and farms that land, and it is a very beautiful area, with good soil, timber and a lovely creek.

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One last photo from the cemetery........this tree seemed to shout, "Hey, I fit right in here......I'm dead, too!! And don't you DARE try any stunts to cheer up MY image........such as a pink background, GOOD GRIEF!!!"

Flag of the Farm

If our farm were a nation or a state, maybe this could be the design of its flag!

Dirt and dandelions........hey, why not. Now, we'll also need to come up with the farm's anthem, and the farm's bird, and tree, and.....let's see.......(thinking).......the farm flower (looks like DANDELION will win), and a motto!! Any ideas? Let me know!

Oh, and this reminds me........did you ever have to create a country for a high school government class assignment? We did. I named my country "Atlantia" and it was a large island nation east of Argentina (whose climate and natural resources lists I used for references). I'm trying to remember what type of government I gave it........I think it was a representative democracy, but had no president.

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Instead of traipsing around in cemeteries yesterday with my mom, I should have been home mowing the lawn. It needs it badly. However, look at the photo below........would you have the heart to mow off all those bright, cheery dandelion blooms??!! I don't, so the mowing will have to wait a couple days until this GORGEOUS yellow carpet turns to unsightly white fluff. (Surely, you're of the opinion that dandelions are gorgeous!)

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Mom and I searched for her grandparents' graves in a large municipal cemetery in Waterloo. Quite a contrast to our small local church cemeteries! We thought we knew the vicinity of the graves, but after walking around for awhile with no luck, we drove down to the maintenance shed and asked an employee holding a weed trimmer if he had a moment to spare. He said he'd look up ONE name for us; we gave him thus and he rummaged in a file box, and then consulted old, yellowed plat maps of the cemetery, informing us then of the section and lot number. Our faces must have projected blank perplexity, for he then took us outdoors and pointed to a tree-shaded hill and said "up there, in the middle".

So we went to the middle of "up there" and walked back and forth between the tall trees and closely-spaced rows of gravestones, searching for the name we wanted, with no success. Pretty soon the maintenance guy appeared still carrying his trimmer and asked us if we'd found our grave. We said "No" and he glanced around and quickly pointed to the stone we were looking for! We appreciated his helpful concern. He probably thought we were blind as bats!

As we stood gazing down at her grandparents' gravestone, Mom reminisced a bit. She said that on Memorial Day each year her parents would pick flowers and then the family would have an outing to the cemetery. She said, "My sister and I would wander around amongst the stones. I remember there was a tall one nearby that had a woman's photograph on it." So I started looking around to see if we could find it. Sure enough, several rows away was the tall, narrow stone of a woman who died in 1936, and an oval photograph of her was encased on the side. Sadly, her face in the photo was missing, appearing to have been smashed by vandals. Cemetery vandalism is confounding........I cannot comprehend how anyone could enjoy doing such a thing.

All in all, Mom and I had a pleasant day together. She seemed to appreciate having a chance to visit these family gravesites for the first time in several years. She kept commenting on how few flowers there were on the graves in the section of the cemetery we were in. Well, the plots there were from the 1930's and '40's, and there's probably very few relatives of those people around anymore.

We living humans were greatly outnumbered by tombstones there in the cemetery yesterday. It was just Mom and me, a handful of other visitors, and several employees steering roaring lawnmowers and wielding buzzing trimmers around hundreds of tombstones. In these surroundings, I kept thinking of the title of a book I read long ago, We The Living, by Ayn Rand. Little do I remember about the story, except that I think it took place in Russia during or right after the Bolshevik Revolution. If my vague memory of it is correct, it was a depressing book.

There were some interesting old statues in the cemetery, here and there, on top of the larger tombstones......... mainly large angels that were crumbly and mottled, but adding a sense of comfort and serenity.

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The best to you on this day!!

SHADE in the Shade

The saying goes that "the road to a friend's house is never long", and I do tend to believe that is the truth. In my case, it can also be said that the road to a cemetery is never long, for all my life, I've lived less than a mile from an old cemetery.

Saturday, I left home to go to friend's house, and as I turned the corner near our farm, the gorgeous flowering trees in the nearby cemetery were clamoring for attention, prompting me to make a mental note to stop there later to take some pictures.

My friend and I went together to visit another friend of ours whose mother is very ill with metatastic brain cancer. (I've known these two friends since kindergarten.) We went to the farm where the mother lives, as her daughter was there caring for her on Saturday. I wasn't sure what to expect, but there was no need to worry, for my friend's mother was sitting on the sofa and seemed comfortable and cheerful, although not quite with-it, mentally. It was a pleasant visit; the woman's family is taking very good care of her.

On my way home, then, I stopped at the cemetery. Mostly, I was concentrating on the beautifully blooming trees, but then noticed something rather special.........this shaded tombstone engraved with the name "SHADE"! (I should have cropped the photo differently, but click on it, if you wish, to see the name better.) The SHADE family resting in the shade.

I've walked through this cemetery a handful of times over the years, mostly to browse for ancestors' graves-------I have a set of great-greatgrandparents buried here-------but I don't recall taking notice of this name SHADE before. There are no people by that name living around here, and I took a look in several phone books, also finding no one by the last name of SHADE. The family name must have died out in this area.

Near the large SHADE tombstone was this little, old one.......Samuel W.G., son of John & Hannah SHADE, died May 31, 1884, aged 10 months. Yesterday afternoon (Sunday), I went back to try and read the inscription etched at the bottom: "Sleep on, dear......God called thee home......He thought it best", were the words that could be deciphered without much trouble.
Obviously, a cemetery is a quiet, peaceful place to spend time in, and I thoroughly enjoyed my interlude there on this sunny Sunday afternoon. A very friendly cat showed up and followed me around amongst the tombstones, managing also to get into several photos! As I roamed around, more and more interesting things became apparent, and I hope to fit some of these tidbits into blog posts as Memorial Day approaches.