Sunday, November 08, 2009

Modern Monuments

My new Twitter pal, Chris Hill, tweets about funeral customs, modern technology in services and bereavement. Browsing around his Web site has been most informative and following his tweets is adding to my knowledge. I was quite taken with the modern mourning jewelry.

I spend most of my time working on ancient New England gravestones but as I have been working on researching more modern graves, I have been wondering about the names of some of the styles of headstones currently in use. I discovered this page which has good information some of which I summarize here.

Flush or Grass Makers are stones that are set in the ground on a level with the grass. [Photo]

Bevel Markers are angled at 6 to 8 inches higher [Photo]

I chose to write about this because I am noticing that the monument makers in the cemeteries I have visited must have favored a certain style of stone in particular years. My paternal grandparents chose the rough back to their stones and didn't opt for the raised lettering. I am trying to find out more about these later stones.

Markers, the journal of the AGS has put their back issues up [for members?] and it could be some help.

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