A Matter of Grave Concern: A Look at Headstones

The gravestone has been around for thousands of year. There is proof that even most primitive men  marked the graves of their loved ones. Earliest man used caves to protect and mark the burial spot of the deceased. The concept of burying the dead in the ground probably developed out of the need to protected the recently deceased from becoming an easy meal for wild beasts.

Placing stones on graves may have been a way for the superstitious to make sure the dead stayed in their graves and did not push themselves up from the ground to walk among the living. Grave marking of various sorts was no doubt practiced by most people so that they could be comforted knowing where their love one laid in death.

Communities eventually established burial grounds so those who had lived near each other in life would have been together in death. It also was an advance in public health to have all those who died possibly by contagious disease buried outside the confines of the village or town. Gravestones have been called many things over the year’s headstones, tombstones,  and granite memorials.  Stones originally  just displayed the person name and year of death.

 It was not uncommon for many of the first graveyards to be family plots as most of the people who lived in a community were related by blood or marriage. This practice of family graveyards continues today in rural areas. Families tend to still buy plots and be buried within the same area of a larger public graveyard. Those interested in any sort of family history often jump at the chance to learn the relationship of those in graves at the same location.

Churches by the time of the Normans saw grave yards as a source of income. The church grave yard was the natural choice for one to reside in death as the church marked all the stages of life from birth to death. Social status in the community was reflected in graves. The graves of the poor marked with wood markers and the graves of the well to do with sandstone or slate. If one was too outside the norm of community standards it was not uncommon for them to be denied burial in the church grounds. Grave markers became a way to not only remember where a love one was buried , but to remember how well to do they were in life.

By the Victorian age , the way death was handled by the family was reflected in how they marked the graves of their loved ones. Family reputation was tied to the ability of the family to afford and maintain elaborate gravestones. Many church graveyards had been filled to capacity and community graveyards became more common. One might have the section of the community graveyard they were buried in based on their religion. Plots still tended to be banded to gather by family. 

The Victorians loved intricate and elaborate grave markers. Many were made of white marble. The gravestones reflected the Victorian tendency to romanticize death. Poetic inscriptions  with ornate cherubs and crosses told a person something about the departed. Positive Christian symbolism of hope and glory replaced the dower skulls that adorned graves of the previous century. Some graves in the late Victorian era held the photograph of the departed in their coffin. Victorians ,if they did not display the picture on the headstone, certainly had photos of the departed at the funeral along with locks of  their hair of the; among family keepsakes.

The graves of the 19th century attracted moss and lichen growth giving the older sections of graveyards an appropriate dreary look. At the end of the Victorian age, graves were no longer made of white marble ,but tended to be made of a softer granite that weathered much faster than marble. To most grave stones are made of polished marble or granite . Cemeteries today tend to have graves cleaned and tended more carefully , as long as the cemetery is still in use. Our country side is littered with older cemeteries where headstones deteriorate and only those graves. Of historical significance are tended too.

Many people today wish to gather information on the graves of their ancestors. Some  people make grave stone rubbings with chalk , crayons , or charcoal. They place paper over the gravestone and rub the indentations to get a  likeness of the writing and art on the headstone. Unfortunately, this further damages  weathered and worn sandstone and  marble graves.  Many people rub graves to be able to better read the engraving on a head stone.  It is better to consult the grounds keeper of the cemetery and  investigate the records of the stone ;than to rub a faded inscription and cause father damage to the head stone.

 The amount of grave rubbing can be reduced by having people copy the information from gravestones and cemetery records and place them online. Many communities have nonprofit organizations  dedicated to preserving old burial grounds and making the information on graves available to researchers on the internet.