Sunday, January 09, 2011

Dollar Sign


Dollar Sign
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel
It is a great deal of fun teaching the Cemetery 101 Research class for Family Tree University. (But, I need more students!)

The lone student in this recent class which spanned the Christmas month took a great photo of this grave in a Catholic cemetery (St. Mary's) near her home in Virginia.

I knew I had seen this symbol before and so did a Google search for "dollar sign symbol gravestone" and BINGO, I got a hit to a fellow Graveyard Rabbit's blog. I love the success. Thanks, Joe for the explanation. [credit: Cemeteries and Cemetery Symbols]

Being a Protestant doesn't prepare me for the myriad of religious symbols on gravestones. I have identified two fairly close by Catholic cemeteries to explore. [Whine] "Is winter over yet? [end Whine]

I should add that this symbol of the $ is in Douglas Keister's book (a MUST read) for gravestone hoppers. It is on page 146 and is called IHS or IHC. It is almost always on crosses.

2 comments:

Lucie LeBlanc Consentino said...

Perhaps this will help your readers. "The IHS Christian Emblem is a Monogram which represents the Holy Name of Jesus consisting of the three letters: IHS. During the Middle Ages, the Name of Jesus was written: IHESUS. The monogram, or emblem, IHS contains the first and last letter of the Holy Name. The letters IHS referring to this monogram do not contain periods, or full stops, after each letter as it is an abbreviation of the name IHESUS."

Lucie

Midge Frazel said...

Thank you Lucie. I have much to learn from you and from Joe and his readers!