Who was Helen's mother?
A cemetery kinship mystery
At West Cemetery in downtown Amherst, there’s a pair of graves I’m always drawn to on my walks. The cemetery was established in 1730, and the markers in question are located in an older section. A gravestone for a seemingly unrelated man who died in 1815 rests on one side of the pair while on the other side is a marker for a woman who died in 1823.
On my mystery graves, one has a first name, Helen, and an age at death, fifteen, while the other only bears the inscription HELEN’S MOTHER.
I haven’t done much digging, but I would love to try to figure out what happened to these women. And although I doubt I would ever be able to answer it fully, I’m most curious as to why Helen’s mother is identified only by that relationship and not by her own name.
One detail I noticed about the gravestones is that the border around the top of Helen’s monument looks like it could have been carved out of the sides of her mother’s grave given the recesses along the side. Perhaps symbolic of a mother’s sacrifice for her child.
It is common to see kinship titles on gravestones (e.g., husband, wife, mother, father, brother, sister, child), but generally the deceased is identified by their own name as well. Helen’s mother’s grave is the only one I’ve ever seen with an inscription like that.
If Helen and her mother are an enigma, there’s a pair of cenotaphs at Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta for a sister and brother, Louise Todd Wallace and Henry Waring Todd, that are much more descriptive.
Both inscriptions speak of Louise’s devotion to her brother. I looked up their obituaries, and apparently they lived together in Paris between World War I and World War II. Their sibling bond was so strong that Louise had her ashes interred at her brother’s gravesite in Long Island rather than next to her husband, Dr. Samuel Wallace, whose gravestone is between their two cenotaphs at Oakland.
If you look closely, you’ll notice that Dr. Wallace is described as the Husband of Louise Todd Wallace, which is unusual, but this is the Todd family lot, so his relation to her is why he has a spot.
Much more often you’ll see women described as Wife of someone, like the three wives of Joseph Whitaker buried in Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati. The first two wives received very lovely epitaphs, and the third, who died after Joseph Whitaker, was lucky to fit on the stone.
What kinship title would you want on your gravestone? How about for your loved ones?
Do you know if the cemetary has record if their birth or death dates?
Interesting question--but don't intend to leave behind a gravestone. Ashes to Ashes/dust to dust.
I've taken up enough space for a long time.